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HALLEY'S    COMET    OF    1910,    AS    SEEN    IN    NEW    YORK,    LOOKING 
WESTWARD.    DURING    THE    LATTER    PART    OF    MAY. 


COMET  LORE 

Halley's    Comet    in    History    and 
Astronomy 


By 
EDWIN    EMERSON 

Author  of  "A  History  of  the  Nineteenth  Century/'  Etc, 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


PRINTED    BY 

THE  SCHILLING  PRESS 

137-139  EAST  25TH   STREET 
NEW  YORK 


1IG 


Copyrighted,  1910,  by  EDWIN  EMERSON 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  I,ondon 
All  rights  reserved  under  Berne  Convention 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America  by  the  Schilling:  Press  in  New  York 
from  the  electrotyped  plates 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Halley's  Comet   7 

The  Terror  of  the  Comet 10 

Famous  Comets  of  Olden  Times 30 

The  Star  of  Bethlehem 39 

Great    Events    and    Disasters    Linked    with 

Comets    42 

Halley's  Comet  the  Bloodiest  of  All 60 

The  Story  of  Edmund  Halley 90 

What  Are  Comets? " 101 

Our  Peril  from  Collision  with  the  Comet 113 

The  End  of  the  World  .  122 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Cover  Designs  by  William  Stevens 

Halley's  Comet  of   1910 Frontispiece 

The  Terror  of  the  Comet  in  Antiquity 13 

The  Terror  of  the  Comet  in  Mediaeval  Times 20 

The  Terror  of  the  Comet  at  the  Present  Day 25 

The  Latest  Photograph  of  the  Comet  of  1910 28 

Napoleon's  Comet  of  181 1    53 

The  Great  Comet  of  1843   56 

Comet  of  Tel-el-Kebir,   1882   59 

Halley's  Comet  of  1835 62 

Halley's  Comet  of  1682  69 

Halley's  Comet  of  1066  in  the  Bayeux  Tapestry .78 

William  the  Conqueror,  an  English  Dream 81 

Portrait  of  Edmund  Halley 92 

The  Orbit  of  Halley's  Comet 103 

Relative   Sizes   of   the   Earth,    the    Moon    and   Halley's 

Comet    J 103 

Donati's  Comet  of  1858  106 

The  Civil  War  Comet  of  1863 109 

Coggia's  Comet  of    1874 112 

Halley's  Conception  of  a  Collision  with  the  Comet 119 


211002 


TO  THE  COMET 

"Thereby  Hangs  a  1  ail." — Shakespeare. 


Lone  wanderer  of  the  trackless  sky! 
Companionless !     Say,  dost  thou  fly 
Along  thy  solitary  path, 
A  flaming  messenger  of  wrath — 
Warning  with  thy  portentous  train 
Of  earthquake,  plague  and  battle-plain? 
Some  say  that  thou  dost  never  fail 
To  bring  some  evil  in  tl.y  tail. 

W.  LATTEY. 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  COMET 

HP  HE  Sun  will  surely  rise  and  set  to-morrow. 

Just  so  surely  must  a  Comet  flare  forth  in  our 
Heavens  this  Spring. 

Star-gazers,  astronomers  and  learned  men  have  been 
waiting  for  this  Comet  all  over  the  earth — in  America, 
in  Europe,  in  far  China. 

They  have  known  for  certain  that  this  Comet  would 
come;  and  they  knew  just  when  and  where  in  the 
Heavens  the  Comet  would  first  show  itself  to  the  naked 
eye — down  to  the  very  night. 

All  this  has  been  known  so  surely  because  this  same 
Comet  has  been  seen  by  the  people  of  this  earth  before. 

It  came  and  went  seventy-four  years  ago.  Seventy-six 
years  before  that,  it  came  and  went.  And  seventy-six 
years  before  that,  the  Comet  had  come  and  gone. 

As  long  as  human  beings  have  lived  on  this  earth — 
for  thousands  and  thousands  of  years — human  eyes  have 
beheld  this  same  Comet  every  seventy-six  years  or  so. 

The  longest  time  between  the  Comet's  coming  has  been 
seventy-nine  years.  The  shortest  interval  of  all — 74//2 
years — was  this  time. 

For  thousands  of  years  in  the  past,  wise  men  have 
written  down  records  of  this  Comet. 

Long,  long  ago,  when  white  men  were  still  savages 
who  dwelt  in  caves,  patient  star-gazers  in  China  and 
Chaldea  studied  the  motions  of  this  Comet. 

Farther  back  than  that,  in  the  hoary  days  before  the 

(7) 


art  of  writing  was  known,  ancient  bards  sang  of  this 
Star  and  its  hairy  tail.  Some  of  their  words  are  still 
remembered. 

Artists  have  drawn  pictures  of  this  Comet.  Their  pic- 
tures are  still  shown. 

Women  have  stitched  images  of  this  Comet  into  their 
handiwork.  Some  of  this  handiwork  can  still  be  seen. 

Coiners  have  stamped  designs  of  this  comet  on  their 
coins  and  medals.  Those  coins  are  still  shown  in  mu- 
seums. 

Priests,  Popes  and  great  Divines  have  preached  about 
this  Comet.  Their  sermons  are  still  preserved  in  the 
records  of  the  Church. 

Learned  men  have  written  in  their  books  what  hap- 
pened when  the  Comet  came.  Those  books  are  read 


The  coming  of  this  Comet  in  olden  times  has  been 

in  lasting  records,  which  he  who  runs  may  read. 
Nothing  in  all  History  is  more  certain  than  the  story 
of  this  Comet. 


(8) 


WHY  HALLEY'S  COMET  ? 

hundred  and  twenty-eight  years  ago,  when  this 
Comet  was  seen  shining  over  the  City  of  London, 
the  great  astronomer,  Edmund  Halley,  made  a  special 
study  of  it. 

Halley  was  the  first  to  say  that  this  Comet  had  come 
before  and  would  surely  come  again.  He  wrote  down 
the  time  when  the  Comet  would  come  again,  long  after 
he  should  be  dead. 

"If  it  should  return,"  he  wrote,  "according  to  our 
predictions,  about  the  year  1758,  impartial  posterity  will 
not  refuse  to  acknowledge  that  this  was  first  discovered 
by  an  Englishman." 

The  Comet  returned,  as  he  had  foretold,  seventeen 
years  after  Halley's  death,  when  it  was  first  seen  in  1758, 
on  Christmas  night,  by  a  man  in  Saxony,  named  Palitsch, 
who  was  looking  for  the  Comet. 

From  that  day  this  Comet  has  been  called  after  Halley. 

Since  then  many  famous  astronomers,  such  as  Clairaut, 
Pontecoulant  and  Laplace  in  France,  have  calculated  the 
dates  for  the  Comet's  return. 

Last  time,  in  1835,  Halley's  Comet  returned  within  a 
few  nights  of  their  prediction. 

This  time,  so  the  astronomers  figured  seventy-five  years 
ago,  the  Comet  should  be  plainly  seen  after  dark  late  this 
May. 

What  they  predicted  has  come  true. 


(9) 


THE  TERROR  OF  THE  COMET 

"Canst  -thou  fearless  gaze 
Even  night  by  night  on  that  prodigious  Blaze, 
That  hairy  Comet,  that  long  streaming  Star, 
Which  threatens  Earth  with  Famine, Plague  and  War?" 

— Sylvester. 

CO  LONG  as  the  memory^of  man  goes  back,  the  ap- 
^  pearance  of  a  Comet  has  always  been  taken  as  a 
just  cause  for  dread. 

In  the  train  of  Comets,  it  has  ever  been  held,  come 
wars,  bloodshed,  fires,  floods,  plagues,  famine  and  the 
fall  of  mighty  rulers. 

Our  Holy  Bible  confirms  this  time-honoured  belief. 

The  Saviour  Himself  said,  according  to  the  Gospel 
of  St.  Luke,  Chap.  XXL,  Verse  10-11 : 

"Nation  shall  rise  against  nation,  and  kingdom  against 
kingdom;  and  great  earthquakes  shall  be  in  divers  places, 
and  famines  and  pestilences;  and  fearful  sights  and  great 
signs  shall  there  be  from  Heaven." 

In  the  Revelation  of  St.  John  the  Divine  (Chap. 
VIIL,  Verse  10)  we  read: 

"There  fell  from  Heaven  a  great  star  burning  as  a 
torch,"  and  again  (Chap.  XII.,  Verse  3)  : 

"There  was  seen  another  sign  in  Heaven,  and  behold 
a  great  red  dragon  .  .  .  and  his  tail  draweth  a  third 
part  of  the  stars  in  Heaven.  And  behold  the  third  woe 
cometh  quickly."  (Chap.  XII.,  Verse  14.) 

The  "flaming  sword"  in  the  hands  of  the  angel  of  the 

(10) 


Lord,  when  Adam  and  Eve  were  driven  from  the  Garden 
of  Eden,  many  sacred  writers  hold,  can  only  be  inter- 
preted as  a  Comet. 

"For  the  Almighty  set  before  the  door 
Of  th'  holy  park  a  seraphim  that  bore 

A  warning  sword,  whose  body  shined  bright 
A  flaming  Comet  in  the  midst  of  night. 

—Todd. 

So,  too,  when  Jerusalem  was  to  be  wasted  by  a  plague, 
David  beheld  a  Comet  in  the  shape  of  a  flaming  sword: 

"And  David  lifted  up  his  eyes  and  saw  the  angel  of 
the  Lord  stand  between  the  earth  and  the  Heaven,  having 
a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand  stretched  out  over  Jerusalem." 

— /.  Chron.  XXI.  16. 

The  fall  of  Satan,  some  sacred  writers  hold,  was 
marked  by  the  appearance  of  a  Comet.  In  Isaiah  (XIV. 
12)  we  find: 

"How  art  thou  fallen  from  Heaven,  O  flaming  one, 
son  of  the  morning!" 

John  Milton,  in  his  "Paradise  Lost,"  has  fixed  this 
image  in  immortal  verse : 

"Satan  stood 

Unterrified,  and  as  a  Comet  burned 
That  fired  the  length  of  Ophiuchus  huge 
In  th'  arctic  sky,  and  from  its  horrid  hair, 
Shakes  pestilence  and  war." 

The  Great  Deluge,  described  in  Holy  Writ,  came  after 
the  appearance  of  a  mighty  Comet  (Halley's  Comet),  so 
Dr.  William  Whiston,  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  successor  in 
the  Lucasian  chair  of  Mathematics  at  Cambridge,  set 
forth  in  a  special  treatise.  The  great  French  astronomer, 
Laplace,  also  reached  the  same  conclusion. 


This  same  Comet  (Halley's  Comet)  likewise  foretold 
the  final  fall  of  the  Holy  City,  Jerusalem,  in  the  year  76 
after  Christ.  This  Comet  was  seen  by  St.  Peter.  Josephus 
in  his  History  of  the  Jewish  Wars  recorded  the  nightly 
appearance  of  this  Comet  over  the  City  of  Jerusalem  just 
before  the  war  which  ended  with  the  destruction  of  the 
Holy  City. 

"Amongst  other  warnings,"  writes  Josephus,  who  saw 
this  Comet  with  his  own  eyes,  ua  Comet  of  the  kind  called 
swordshaped,  because  their  tails  appear  to  represent  the 
blade  of  a  sword,  was  seen  above  the  city  for  the  space 
of  a  whole  year." 

Josephus  at  the  time  rebuked  his  Jewish  countrymen 
for  listening  to  false  prophets  while  so  clear  a  sign  from 
Heaven  was  before  their  very  eyes. 

This  same  Comet  (Halley's  Comet)  reappeared  at  a 
critical  period  of  the  rule  of  Constantine  the  Great,  the 
first  Christian  Emperor  of  Rome.  He  first  beheld  his 
sign  from  Heaven  in  the  midst  of  battle  as  it  blazed  over- 
head in  the  sign  of  a  Cross.  With  the  help  of  his  mother, 
the  sainted  Helen,  Constantine  was  moved  thereby  to 
turn  Christian. 

Constantinople,  the  great  capital  of  the  Orient,  which 
owes  its  name  to  this  same  Emperor  Constantine,  was  lost 
to  Christendom  in  the  year  1453,  when  the  Turks  over- 
ran the  great  city  with  fire  and  sword.  This  event,  it  is 
recorded,  was  heralded  by  another  appearance  of  a 
Comet.  Three  years  later,  when  the  Turks  were  about 
to  descend  upon  Belgrade,  another  Comet  (Halley's 
Comet)  spread  consternation  throughout  Europe. 

At  that  time  Pope  Calixtus  III.,  on  the  appearance  of 
this  Comet,  seeing  that  evils  were  impending  for  the 
human  race,  called  for  prayers  that  the  Almighty  would 

(12) 


"A    SWORD-SHAPED   COMET   BLAZED   OVER   THE    DOOMED 

_josephus'    "History    of    Judea. 


turn  these  evils  upon  the  Turks,  the  enemies  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith. 

At  the  same  time  the  Holy  Father  gave  orders  for  all 
Church  bells  to  be  tolled  at  noon  to  remind  faithful  Chris- 
tians to  pray  for  those  battling  against  the  Turk. 

Into  the  Ave  Maria  were  put  the  words:  "From  the 
Devil,  the  Turk  and  the  Comet,  Good  Lord,  deliver  us!" 

Since  that  time  in  most  Catholic  countries  the  Angelus 
is  still  regularly  rung  at  noon.  In  Italy,  even  to-day,  the 
cakes  sold  before  the  church  doors  at  noon  go  by  the 
name  of  Comete. 

All  the  great  Fathers  of  the  Church  have  taught  that 
Comets  are  to  be  taken  as  signs  from  Heaven. 

Baeda,  the  Venerable,  declared  in  the  seventh  century 
in  England,  that  "Comets  portend  revolutions  of  king- 
doms, pestilence,  war,  winds,  or  heat." 

John  of  Damascus,  preaching  in  the  same  century  in 
the  Orient,  laid  down  the  same  belief. 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  great  Light  of  the  Church 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  accepted  and  handed  down  the 
same  opinion. 

The  sainted  Albert  the  Great,  the  most  noted  thinker 
of  the  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages,  received  and  taught 
the  same  doctrine. 

The  teachings  of  these  Church  Fathers  as  to  Comets 
have  been  commended  in  our  own  day  by  Pope  Pius  IX. 

The  great  teachers  of  other  religions,  likewise,  have 
laid  down  identical  beliefs  as  to  the  meaning  of  Comets. 

The  saered  books  of  India  are  full  of  awed  references 
to  the  baleful  influence  of  Comets. 

The  ancient  year  books  of  China,  written  centuries  be- 
fore white  men  kept  any  records,  tell  of  the  appearance 
of  Comets  and  of  the  disasters  they  foretold. 

The  Mohametans  and  their  wise  Arab  star  gazers, 

(14) 


when  they  saw  a  Comet  in  the  Heavens,  knew  that  it 
meant  war. 

The  woe  of  one  Comet  (Halley's  Comet  of  i456)> 
which  had  the  shape  of  a  Turkish  scimitar,  so  the  Arab 
soothsayers  foretold,  would  be  turned  against  their 
enemies.  This  was  the  same  Comet  which  brought  such 
fear  to  the  hearts  of  Pope  Calixtus  III.  and  all  his  Chris- 
tian followers. 

Thus  it  can  be  seen  that  Comets  have  been  held 
foretell  disaster  on  one  side,  and  victory  on  the  other. 

The  Comets  which  conquerors  hailed  as  their  guiding 
stars,  have  meant  war  and  bloodshed  and  disaster  to  those 
whom  they  came  to  conquer. 

The  same  Comets  which  shone  upon  the  birth  ot 
mighty  rulers,  have  blazed  in  warning  of  their  death. 

Julius  Caesar,  who  was  born  under  a  Comet,  saw  his 
bloody  end  foretold  by  another  Comet.  ^ 

Therefore,  Shakespeare  in  his  play  "Julius  Caesar, 
makes  Calphurnia  say  to  Caesar: 

"When  beggars  die,  there  are  no  Comets  seen; 
The    Heavens    themselves    blaze    forth   the    death    ot 
princes." 

On  the  night  of  Caesar's  assassination,  when  the  Comet 
was  seen  blazing  at  its  brightest,  the  Romans  said  that 
it  had  come  to  bear  away  the  great  soul  of  the  murde 

Caesar.  , 

At  the  death  of  Nero,  the  Roman  Emperor,  who  per- 
secuted  the  Christians,  a  Comet  blazed  forth  again     The 
Roman  historian  Suetonius,  who  wrote  the  Life  of 
peror  Nero,  thus  described  this  Comet : 

"A  blazing  star,  which  was  commonly  held  to  portend 
destruction  to  Kings  and  Princes,  reappeared  above  the 
Horizon  several  nights  in  succession." 

(15) 


Another  great  Comet  (Halley's  again)  reappeared 
when  Attila,  the  King  of  the  Huns,  the  ''Scourge  of  God," 
was  overthrown  in  the  greatest  battle  of  Christendom  on 
the  Catalaunian  fields. 

Claudius,  a  Roman  writer  of  that  period,  then  stated 
that  "a  Comet  was  never  seen  in  the  Heavens  without 
implying  some  dreadful  event." 

This  has  ever  been  the  belief  of  all  the  great  poets  of 
olden  time. 

Homer,  the  greatest  poet  of  Ancient  Greece,  a  thous- 
and years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  sang  of: 

"The  red  star,  that  from  his  flaming  hair 
Shakes  down  diseases,  pestilence  and  war." 

Let  it  be  explained  here  that  the  word  Comet  in  Greek 
means  "long-haired,"  from  kome, — hair. 

Virgil,  the  greatest  Roman  poet,  sang  of  "the  baleful 
glare  of  bloody  Comets,"  and  again,  of  "dreadful  Comets 
blazing  in  the  sky." 

Tasso,  the  greatest  of  Italian  poets  after  Dante,  sang 
thus  of  Comets  in  his  "Jerusalem  Delivered" : 

"Qual  con  le  chiome  sanguinose  horrende 
Splender  Cometa  suol  per  1'aria  adusta, 
Che  i  regni  muta,  e  i  feri  morbi  adduce, 
Ai  purpurei  tiranni  infausta  luce." 
— Gerusalemme  Liber  ata,  Canto  Vll.,  Stanza  52. 

Rendered  thus  by  Wiffen  into  English: 

"As  with  its  bloody  locks  let  loose  in  air 
Horribly  bright,  the  Comet  shows  whose  shine 
Plagues  the  parched  World,  whose  looks  the  Nations 

scare, 

Before  whose  face  States  change,  and  Powers  decline, 
To  purple  Tyrants  all,  an  inauspicious  sign." 

(16) 


The  great  English  poets,  on  their  part,  have  lifted  up 
their  voices  to  sing  of  the  dire  effects  of  Comets. 

Shakespeare,  the  greatest  of  them  all,  abounds  in  allu- 
sions to  these  dread  wandering  stars. 

Thus  he  makes  Horatio  in  the  first  scene  of  "Hamlet" 
speak  with  awe  of: 

"Stars  with  trains  of  fire  and  dews  of  blood; 


And  even  the  like  precurse  of  fierce  events, 
As  harbingers  preceding  still  the  fates 
And  prologue  to  the  omen  coming  on." 

More  briefly  Shakespeare  in  his  "Henry  VI."  refers  to : 

"A  Comet  of  revenge 
A  prophet  to  the  fall  of  all  our  foes" ; 

and  again,  in  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew"  to: 
"Some  Comet  or  unusual  prodigy." 

Spenser  in  his  "Faerie  Queene"  sings  of  a  woman's  hair 
loosely  dispersed  in  the  wind: 

"All  as  a  blazing  starre  doth  farre  outcast 
His  heavy  beames,  and  flaming  lockes  dispredd, 
At  sight  whereof  the  people  stand  aghast; 
But  the  sage  Wizzard  telles,  as  he  has  redd, 
That  it  importunes  death  and  doleful  drearyhedd." 

John  Milton,  besides  likening  Satan  to  a  Comet,  as  be- 
fore quoted,  also  showed  that  he  shared  in  the  belief  that 
the  flaming  swords  mentioned  in  Holy  Writ  were 
Comets : 

"High  in  front  advanced 

The  brandished  sword  of  God  before  them  blazed 
Fierce  as  a  Comet." 

(17) 


The  poet  Young,  in  his  "Night  Thoughts,"  aptly  writes 
of  the  Comet: 

"Hast  thou  ne'er  seen  the  Comet's  flaming  light? 
Th'  illustrious  stranger  passing,  terror  sheds 
On  gazing  Nations,  from  his  fiery  train." 

The  poets  of  other  nations  have  written  of  Comets  in 
like  vein.  There  is  an  old  German  rhyme,  sung  by  Ger- 
man school  children  even  to-day,  which  has  been  put  into 
English  by  Dr.  Andrew  D.  White  in  his  "History  of  the 
Doctrine  of  Comets" : 

"Eight  things  there  be  a  Comet  brings, 
When  it  on  high  doth  horrid  range; 
Wind,  Famine,  Plague,  and  Death  to  Kings, 
War,  Earthquake,  Floods  and  Direful  Change." 

This  little  rhyme  was  originally  put  forth  for  German 
school  children  by  two  Protestant  preachers  of  Basle, 
Switzerland,  at  the  time  of  the  great  Comet  of  1618, 
which  heralded  the  outbreak  of  the  great  "Thirty  Years' 
War." 

These  Protestant  ministers  got  their  belief  in  Comets 
and  their  evil  influence  upon  mankind  not  from  the  Church 
of  Rome,  but  from  the  Bible  teachings  of  such  great 
Protestant  reformers  as  Martin  Luther,  Melanchthon, 
Zwingli,  Calvin,  John  Knox  of  Scotland,  Bishop  Jeremy 
Taylor  and  John  Howe,  the  great  Nonconformist  divine. 

Martin  Luther  preached  in  one  of  his  Advent  sermons : 

"The  heathen  write  that  the  Comet  may  arise  from  nat- 
ural causes;  but  God  creates  not  one  that  does  not  fore- 
token a  sure  calamity." 

Luther's  friend,  Melanchthon,  in  a  letter,  declared 
Comets  to  be  "heralds  of  Heaven's  wrath." 

Zwingli,  in  1531,  declared  that  the  great  Comet  of  that 

(18) 


year  (Halley's  Comet)  was  sent  by  God  to  betoken 
calamity. 

John  Knox,  preaching  in  his  Scottish  kirk  at  Edinboro, 
declared  that  he  saw  in  Comets  tokens  of  the  wrath  of 
Heaven.  . 

The  great  divines  of  the  Church  of  England, — from 
Cranmer,  Bishop  Latimer,  Archbishops  Spottiswoode  and 
Bramhall,  Bishop  Jeremy  Taylor,  down  to  our  own  times, 
clearly  preached  the  doctrine  that  Comets  must  be  taken 
as  tokens  from  Heaven. 

Thus  the  Comet  of  1572  was  pointed  out  from  the  pul- 
pits of  England  and  Scotland  as  a  token  of  Heaven's 
wrath  and  warning  at  the  St.  Batholomew  Massacre  on 
the  night  of  August  24,  1572,  when  thirty  thousand 
Huguenots  were  murdered  in  the  streets  of  Paris  and  else- 
where in  France. 

Across  the  sea,  in  the  new  Commonwealth  of  Massa- 
chusetts, the  great  New  England  divine  and  President  of 
Harvard  College,  Increase  Mather,  on  the  apparition  of 
the  great  Comet  now  known  as  Halley's,  in  1682, 
preached  on  "Heaven's  Wrath  Alarm  to  the  World — 
wherein  is  shown  that  fearful  sights  and  signs  in  the 
Heavens  are  the  presages  of  great  calamities  at  hand." 

Increase  Mather  preached  on  the  text  taken  from  the 
Book  of  Revelation :  "And  the  third  Angel  sounded,  and 
there  fell  a  great  Star  burning  as  a  Torch,  .  .  and  be- 
hold the  Third  Woe  cometh  quickly." 

In  this  sermon  the  great  preacher  told  of  the  Roman 
Emperor  Vespasian,  who,  when  warned  of  the  omen  of  a 
Comet,  made  fun  of  it,  and  then  died  miserably. 

So  Mather  preached:  "For  the  Lord  hath  fired  his 
beacon  in  the  Heavens  among  the  stars  of  God  there.  The 
fearful  sign  is  not  yet  out  of  sight.  .  .  Do  we  not  see 
the  sword  blazing  over  us?  .  .  Doth  God  threaten 

(19) 


THE   TERROR   OF   THE   COMET    OF    1531.        FROM    AN    OLD 
NUREMBERG    WOOD-CUT. 


our  very  Heavens?  O  pray  unto  Him,  that  he  would  not 
take  away  stars  and  send  Comets  to  succeed  them!" 

The  profound  Russian  thinker  Tolstoy,  in  his  great 
book  "War  and  Peace,"  has  written  of  the  flaming  Comet 
of  1811.  This  was  the  famous  "Comet  of  Napoleon," 
which  blazed  over  Western  Europe  when  Napoleon  was 
gathering  his  grand  army  for  its  disastrous  march  into 
Russia  and  to  Moscow. 

At  Moscow,  the  ancient  capital  of  Russia,  this  Comet 
was  observed  by  anxious  thousands.  One  night  there  was 
this  talk  between  a  novice  nun  and  the  Abbess  of  her  Con- 
vent. On  their  way  to  vesper  service  one  evening  in  Mos- 
cow the  nun  suddenly  beheld  the  Comet  for  the  first  time 
and  asked:  "What  is  that  star?" 

The  Abbess  answered:  "It  is  not  a  star.  It  is  a 
Comet." 

"But  what  is  a  Comet?"  asked  the  young  nun.  "I  have 
never  heard  that  word." 

The  Abbess  then  answered:  "Comets  are  signs  in 
Heaven,  which  God  sends  before  misfortunes." 

Shortly  after  this  the  bloody  battle  of  Borodino  was 
fought,  and  Napoleon,  with  his  army,  appeared  before  the 
gates  of  Moscow.  The  hundred-towered  city  was  aban- 
doned by  the  Russians  and  was  given  over  to  the  flames. 

Years  afterward  this  same  nun  thus  told  her  story,  as 
printed  in  the  "Revue  des  Deux  Mondes" : 

"Every  night  the  Comet  blazed  in  the  Heavens,  and 
we  all  asked  ourselves:  What  misfortune  does  it  bring? 
Then  the  enemy  came,  and  our  sacred  city  was  put  to  the 
torch.  Our  convent,  together  with  all  other  cloisters, 
monasteries  and  churches,  was  burned  to  the  ground." 

Many  other  writers  of  the  time  who  saw  the  great 
Comets  that  blazoned  Napoleon's  destructive  wars  have 

(21) 


recorded  how  they  were  universally  taken  as  omens  of  the 
great  conqueror's  bloody  trail. 

Napoleon  himself  gloried  in  this  dread  omen  and 
hailed  the  Comet  as  his  "guiding  star." 

All  this  has  been  fully  set  forth  by  the  famous  French 
astronomer  Messier,  a  latter  day  observer  of  Halley's 
Comet,  who  wrote  a  special  book  on  "The  Wonderful 
Comet  which  appeared  at  the  Birth  of  Napoleon  the 
Great." 

As  for  the  many  Comets  that  have  blazed  down  upon 
other  great  conquerors  and  other  bloody  wars,  before 
the  comparatively  recent  Comets  of  the  American  Civil 
War  and  the  Napoleonic  Wars,  they  are  all  set  down 
in  a  special  History  of  Comets. 

In  this  great  work,  entitled  UA  History  of  All 
Comets,"  the  Latin  scholar  Lubienitius  has  pointed  out 
all  the  calamities  and  dire  events  which  attended  the  ap- 
pearance of  each  and  every  Comet  recorded  in  history. 


(22) 


THE  EFFECTS  OF  COMETS  ON  MAN 

SOME  thinkers  have  pointed  out  that  there  has  often 
been  a  direct  connection  between  the  feelings  pro- 
duced in  the  human  soul  by  the  appearance  of  a  Comet 
and  the  human  deeds  of  violence  or  the  human  epidemics 
and  excessive  mortality  following  the  widespread  terror 
produced  by  Comets. 

Only  this  year  (1910)  the  appearance  I  of  Inness' 
Comet  over  Mexico  caused  a  panic  stricken  holy  pilgrim- 
age to  the  Shrine  of  Talpa.  In  China,  too,  it  caused 
terror,  resulting  in  Christian  massacres.  | 

Hence,  also,  several  Jewish  massacres  inspired  by 
Comets  in  the  past  and  hence  also  so  many  terrifying, 
plagues  connected  with  Comets. 

Thus  Ambroise  Pare,  the  "Father  of  French  Surgery," 
who  flourished  in  the  sixteenth  century,  has  recorded 
the  effect  produced  upon  his  contemporaries  by  the 
Comet  of  1528. 

"This  Comet  was  so  horrible,"  wrote  Dr.  Pare,  "so 
frightful,  and  it  produced  such  great  terror  among  the 
common  people,  that  many  died  of  fear  and  many  others 
fell  sick." 

Dr.  Pare  himself  appears  to  have  come  under  the  in- 
fluence of  this  fear,  judging  from  his  awe-struck  descrip- 
tion of  the  appearance  of  this  Comet: 

"It  appeared  to  be  of  excessive  length;  and  was  of 
the  colour  of  blood.  At  the  summit  of  it  was  seen  the 
figure  of  a  bent  arm,  holding  in  its  hand  a  great  sword 
as  if  about  to  strike. 

"At  the  end  of  the  point  there  were  three  stars.  On 
both  sides  of  the  rays  of  this  Comet  were  seen  a  great 
number  of  axes,  knives,  and  ,  blood-coloured  swords, 
among  which  were  a  great  number  of  hideous  human 
faces  with  beards  and  bristling  hair." 


Hannibal  committed  suicide  on  account  of  a  Comet. 
So  did  Mithridates.  So  did  one  Toma,  in  Hungary,  only 
this  year. 

King  Louis  "the  Debonair"  of  France,  died  from  fear 
of  a  Comet  (Halley's  Comet)  in  837  A.  D. 

Emperor  Charles  V.,  of  Germany  and  Spain,  the  mon- 
arch who  boasted  that  "the  sun  never  set  on  his  domin- 
ions," was  so  moved  by  the  appearance  of  a  Comet  in 
1556,  that  he  gave  up  his  crown  and  became  a  monk. 

Certain  metaphysicians  have  held  that  there  is  a  sub- 
stance in  a  Comet,  or  in  its  tail,  which  has  a  weird  effect 
on  man's  brain,  as  moonshine  is  believed  to  have  on  some 
men,  making  them  lunatics.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  as 
Arago  pointed  out,  Comets  have  caused  tremendous 
spring  tides  just  like  the  moon.  The  same  irresistible 
pull  of  gravity  or  electricity  or  light-pressure  must  per- 
force affect  other  substances  besides  water,  such  as 
human  brains. 

According  to  this  metaphysical  theory,  the  close  ap- 
proach of  a  Comet  to  the  earth  affects  and  disturbs  men's 
brains,  so  that  men  are  inwardly  stirred  with  warlike 
impulses.  Hence  the  great  wars  almost  invariably  fol- 
lowing the  appearance  of  Comets. 

Hence,  too,  the  appeal  to  Comets  made  by  so  many 
conquerors,  from  William  the  Conqueror  down  to 
Napoleon.  In  the  homely  phrase  of  one  writer,  "the 
inner  eye  of  man,  under  the  weird  effect  of  a  Comet,  sees 
red  and  makes  him  thirst  for  blood." 

Those  rare  beings  who  have  lying  latent  within  them 
the  gift  of  Second  Sight  or  divination,  according  to  this 
same  metaphysical  theory,  upon  the  near  approach  of 
Comets  find  themselves  stirred  to  prophesy.  Hence,  so 
many  marvellous  prophesies  inspired  by  Comets  since 
the  ancient  days  of  Merlin,  the  seer. 

(24) 


"THE  COMET  OF  1910  SO  ALARMED  THE  PEOPLE  OF  MEXICO 
THAT  MANY  THOUSANDS  WENT  ON  A  HOLY  PILGRIMAGE  TO  THE 
SHRINE  OF  TALPA  IN  XALISCO."— Mexican  Herald. 


THIS  YEAR'S  PROPHECIES 

rTAHE  return  of  Halley's  Comet  in  this  Year  of  Our 
Lord     1910    has    already    called    forth    several 
memorable  prophesies. 

On  January  2Oth  the  French  astrologer  and  prophet- 
ess Madame  de  Thebes,  who  predicted  the  disastrous 
French  floods  of  this  year,  as  well  as  the  coming  of 
Inness'  unexpected  Comet,  uttered  the  following  pro- 
phesies: 

"This  year,  1910,  will  be  one  to  look  back  to  with 
trembling. 

"The  earth  is  under  a  terrific  strain  from  Comets  and 
planetary  revolutions.  Human  destiny  is  red.  That 
means  blood.  Political  events  are  black.  Terrible 
changes  are  imminent. 

"This  winter,  France  will  be  swept  by  terrible  floods. 
Paris  will  be  under  water.  The  influence  of  form  changes 
in  other  planets  and  the  coming  of  a  Comet  will  affect 
us  for  the  worse. 

"The  strain  of  the  stars  will  be  most  severely  felt  in 
America.  The  people  of  America  will  have  to  pay  dear- 
ly for  all  their  riches  and  sudden  prosperity.  With  the 
coming  of  another  Comet  disaster  will  descend  upon 
America. 

"A  financial  crash  is  impending,  to  be  followed  by  a 
long  string  of  suicides.  Black  ruling  us,  men  will  com- 
mit all  manner  of  crimes  and  knaveries  for  money. 

"The  times  are  swaying  toward  degeneration.  We 
are  swinging  within  the  evil  influence  of  a  strange  orbit. 
Our  souls  are  jarred  from  their  proper  bearings.  I 

(26) 


dare  not  .say  all  that  is  revealed  to  me.     It  would  be  too 
terrible." 

Soon  after  this  prophesy  was  uttered  came  the  first  of 
such  suicides.  Adam  Toma,  a  wealthy  landowner  of 
Szozona,  Hungary,  cut  his  throat  because  of  the  Comet. 
He  left  a  note  saying  that  the  Comet  was  the  cause  of 
his  death. 

Cardinal  Gibbons  later  expressed  his  profound  belief 
that  the  Paris  floods  of  this  year  were  sent  by  God  as  a 
punishment  to  the  Parisians  for  their  frivolities  and  sins, 
of  which  the  Comet  was  a  fiery  warning. 

Commenting  on  Madame  de  Thebes'  predictions  and 
her  connection  of  the  Comet  of  1910  with  this  year's 
spring-floods  in  France,  Italy  and  Germany,  the  French 
astronomer  Henri  Deslandres,  late  Director  of  the  As- 
tronomical Observatory  of  Meudon  and  member  of  the 
French  Academy  of  Sciences,  said: 

"However  distant  Comets  may  be,  it  is  not  at  all  im- 
possible that  their  enormous  tails,  measuring  75,000,000 
to  125,000,000  miles  in  length,  may  come  in  contact  with 
our  atmosphere.  The  theory  that  a  Comet  may  disturb 
the  atmosphere  of  the  earth,  causing  rains  of  great  dura- 
tion, and  consequently  inundations  and  the  sudden  over- 
flow of  rivers,  is  not  at  all  absurd.  It  can  be  sustained 
by  scientific  reasoning." 

It  should  be  remembered  here  that  Laplace,  one  of 
the  greatest  of  all  astronomers,  credited  the  deluge  to  a 
Comet. 

Before  Madame  de  Thebes'  ominous  prophesy  con- 
cerning Halley's  Comet  and  its  effects  upon  America 
were  cabled  over  to  this  country,  another,  no  less  dire 
prediction  of  financial  disaster  in  the  United  States,  co- 
incident with  the  appearance  of  Halley's  Comet,  was 
made  by  W.  E.  Corey,  the  President  of  the  American 
Steel  Trust. 

(27) 


THE    COMET    OF    1910,    FROM    A    TELESCOPIC    PHOTOGRAPH    TAKEN 
AT   GREENWICH. 


Mr.  Corey  then  warned  his  friends  to  "call  in  their 
money  and  get  from  under"  because  a  calamitous  finan- 
cial crash  and  general  business  ruin  would  surely  come 
during  the  Spring  of  1910. 

The  most  ominous  of  all  prophesies  connected  with 
the  coming  of  Halley's  Comet  this  year  was  made  by 
the  venerable  General  Ballington  Booth,  the  head  of  the 
Salvation  Army.  Speaking  in  London,  immediately  after 
Halley's  Comet  had  been  located,  early  this  year,  Gen- 
eral Booth  said: 

"We  are,  this  year,  rapidly  approaching  the  end  of 
all  things,  with  similar  results,  but  far  surpassing  in  hor- 
ors  any  disaster  that  has  gone  before. 

"All  things  will  be  wound  up.  Besides  a  deluge  of 
water  sweeping  parts  of  the  world  and  its  inhabitants 
there  will  be  fierce  destruction  by  fire." 


(29) 


FAMOUS  COMETS  OF  OLDEN 
TIMES 

"DACON,  the  great  English  thinker,  has  said:  "Comets 
-^  have  some  action  and  effect  on  the  universality  of 
things." 

All  Comets  recorded  in  history,  so  Lubieninitius  has 
shown  in  his  "Universal  History  of  All  Comets,"  ap- 
peared in  connection  with  some  great  event  or  catastro- 
phe in  the  History  of  Man. 

George  F.  Chambers,  one  of  the  most  up-to-date  writ- 
ers on  Astronomy  and  Comets,  on  the  second  page  of 
his  "Story  of  the  Comets"  (1909),  declares: 

"It  is  the  general  testimony  of  History  during  many 
hundreds  of  years,  one  might  even  say  during  fully  2',ooo 
years,  that  Comets  were  always  considered  to  be  pecu- 
liarly 'ominous  of  the  wrath  of  Heaven  and  as  har- 
bingers of  wars  and  famines,  of  the  dethronement  of 
Monarchs  and  the  dissolution  of  Empires/  ' 

Reaching  back  into  remotest  history,  the  sacred  books 
of  India  show  that  the  births  of  Krishna  and  of  Buddha 
were  foretold  by  moving  lights  in  the  Heavens. 

The  ancient  records  of  China  tell  of  the  appearance 
of  a  moving  beacon  in  Heaven  at  the  birth  of  YU,  the 
first  ruler  of  the  Celestial  Empire,  and  again  at  the  birth 
of  the  great  Chinese  prophet,  Lao-Tse. 

The  ancient  Greeks  have  recorded  similar  appearances 
of  Comets.  Aesculapius,  the  divine  healer  and  first  phy- 
sician, was  born  under  a  Comet. 

The  oldest  traditions  of  the  Jews  tell  us  that  when 
Abraham  was  born  a  moving  star  was  seen  in  the  East. 

(30) 


Another  moving  star  with  long  radiant  gleams  of  light 
streaming  behind  it  shone  forth  at  the  birth  of  Moses. 
This  Comet  was  seen  by  the  Magi  of  Egypt,  who  pointed 
it  out  to  the  King  as  an  omen  meant  for  him.  Hence 
Pharaoh's  order,  as  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  for 
the  slaughter  of  all  male  Jewish  infants  then  born  in 
Egypt 


t.O) 


GREAT  EVENTS  CONNECTED    WITH 
HISTORIC  COMETS  IN  ANTIQUITY 


T^HE  earliest  Comet  of  which  there  is  any  historic 
record  was  a  Comet  mentioned  in  the  oldest 
cuneiform  inscriptions  of  Babylonia  several  thousand 
years  before  our  Christian  era,  recently  found  on  the 
north  bank  of  Nahr-al-Kalb,  near  Beyrut  in  Syria.  This 
Comet  is  recorded  to  have  been  visible  to  the  naked  eye 
for  29  nights. 

At  the  time  Lubienitius  wrote  his  big  "History  of  all 
the  Comets"  the  exact  date  of  this  Comet  had  not  been 
fixed.  Lubienitus,  though,  had  a  record  of  this  same 
Comet,  the  date  of  which  he  fixes  at  the  year  2312  before 
Christ,  the  date  computed  by  him  and  other  writers  for 
the  beginning  of  the  deluge. 

In  modern  times  the  great  French  astronomer  Laplace 
credited  a  Comet  with  causing  huge  floods  at  the  time  of 
the  great  Deluge. 

Two  hundred  and  eighty-eight  years  after  the  great 
Deluge,  according  to  the  records  of  the  Chaldean  star 
gazers,  there  appeared  another  Comet.  This  is  the  date, 
computed  by  Lubienitius,  for  the  building  of  the  Tower 
of  Babel  and  the  confusion  of  tongues. 

Two  thousand  and  sixty-four  years  before  Christ,  an- 
other Comet  appeared,  as  recorded  by  the  Chaldeans. 
This  is  the  date  given  for  the  birth  of  Abraham. 

When  Abraham  was  seventy  years  old,  in  the  year 
1949  B.  C.,  a  Comet  was  seen  shining  over  the  Valley  of 
Siddim  for  twenty-two  nights.  This  is  the  date  given 
by  Bible  historians  for  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and 

(32) 


Gomorrha,  the  two  cities  of  iniquity  which  lay  in  the  Vale 
of  Siddim. 

Jewish  analists  record  a  Comet  in  Egypt  in  the  year 
corresponding  to  B.  C.  1841.  This  Comet  shone  at  the 
time  of  the  bitter  persecution  of  the  Jews  by  the  Egyp- 
tians. 

Arabian  star  gazers  have  recorded  a  Comet  shining 
over  Arabia  1732  B.  C.  In  that  year  there  was  a  ter- 
rible famine,  of  which  mention  is  made  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. 

The  ancient  Chinese  year  books  record  the  appearance 
of  a  Comet  over  northern  China  and  Manchuria  in  the 
year  corresponding  to  1537  B.  C.  The  appearance  of 
the  Comet,  so  the  Chinese  chronicles  tell,  was  followed 
by  a  great  flood  and  disastrous  famine. 

The  next  Comet  of  which  we  have  any  record,  ap- 
peared 1515  B.  C.  This  was  at  the  time  of  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  from  Egypt. 

In  the  year  B.  C.  1194,  we  are  told  by  Hyginus  that 
"On  the  fall  of  Troy,  one  of  the  Pleiades  group  of  stars 
rushed  along  the  Heavens  toward  the  Arctic  pole,  where 
the  star  remained  visible  with  dishevelled  hair,  to  which 
the  name  of  Comet  is  applied." 

We  are  informed  by  Pliny,  the  Roman  historian,  that 
in  B.  C.  975,  the  "Egyptians  and  Ethiopians  suffered 
from  a  terrible  famine,  the  dire  effects  of  a  Comet.  It 
appeared  all  on  fire,  and  was  twisted  in  the  form  of  a 
wreath,  and  had  a  hideous  aspect.  It  seemed  not  to  be 
a  star,  but  rather  a  knot  of  fire." 

Babylonian  cuneiform  inscriptions  tell  us  that  about 
575  B.  C.,  when  Nebuchadnezzar  overran  Elam,  ua  star 
arose  whose  head  was  bright  as  day,  while  from  its  lum- 
inous body  a  tail  extended  like  the  sting  of  a  scorpion." 

According  to  Pliny,  again,  a  Comet  in  the  form  of  a 

(33) 


:       '••• 


horn  was  seen  in  the  year  B.  C.  480,  just  before  the 
great  invasion  of  Greece  by  Xerxes  ending  in  the  bloody 
sea  fight  of  Salamis. 

The  next  Comet  mentioned  by  Lubienitius  appeared  in 
B.  C.  466,  when  it  was  seen  for  75  nights  all  over  Greece. 
I:i  that  year  Greece  was  ravaged  by  war  between  the 
Spartans  and  Athenians,  and  the  city  of  Sparta  was  all 
but  destroyed  by  an  earthquake. 

The  next  Comet  appeared  one  generation  later  in  431 
B.  C.,  and  was  seen  through  60  nights  all  over  the  ancient 
world.  This  Comet  was  followed  by  a  terrible  pestil- 
ence which  swept  over  Aethiopia,  Egypt,  Athens,  and 
Rome.  War  broke  out  all  over  Greece.  It  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  great  Peloponnesian  War,  which  devas- 
tated Greece  for  a  generation  to  follow. 

In  the  year  394  B.  C.,  there  was  another  Comet  seen 
in  Greece,  followed  by  the  great  Corinthian  War  with 
the  bloody  battles  of  Knidus  and  Koronea. 

Aristotle  records  a  Comet  seen  by  him  in  his  fifteenth 
year,  371  B.  C.  The  sight  of  it  inspired  the  youth  to  a 
special  study  of  astronomy.  The  Comet  .was  visible  until 
the  end  of  the  first  week  of  July.  On  July  eighth  was 
fought  the  great  battle  between  the  Thebans  and  Spar- 
tans, when  Epaminondas,  one  of  the  greatest  generals 
of  antiquity,  overthrew  the  Spartans. 

The  next  Comet,  that  of  338  B.  C.,  which  was  likewise 
observed  by  Aristotle,  who  had  then  become  the  teacher 
of  Alexander  the  Great,  marked  Alexander's  first  public 
entry  into  the  history  of  the  world.  The  Comet  blazed 
its  brightest  on  the  eve  of  the  bloody  battle  of  Chaeronea, 
Alexander's  first  victory  and  achievement  in  war. 

In  the  year  344  B.  C.,  there  was  another  Comet,  fol- 
lowed by  another  war  in  Greece  and  Sicily.  Diodorus  of 
Sicily  wrote  of  this  Comet:  "On  the  departure  of  the 

(34) 


expedition  of  Timoleon  from  Corinth  for  Sicily  with 
all  his  war  ships,  the  Gods  foretold  success  by  an  extra- 
ordinary prodigy:  A  burning  torch  appeared  in  the 
Heavens  for  an  entire  night  and  went  before  the  fleet 
into  Sicily." 

The  Comets  of  Carthage. 

Nearly  a  hundred  years  passed  before  the  appearance 
of  another  Comet  in  240  B.  C.  This  is  the  first  recorded 
appearance  of  Halley's  Comet.  By  the  light  of  this 
Comet,  Hamilcar,  the  great  Carthaginian  general,  made 
his  young  son  Hannibal  swear  eternal  enmity  to  the 
Romans.  Hamilcar  was  then  in  the  midst  of  prepara- 
tions for  the  war  against  Rome,  which  broke  out  soon 
afterward. 

Comets  appear  to  have  been  stars  of  special  omen  to 
Hannibal  and  to  his  native  city,  Carthage.  Twenty  years 
later,  appeared  another  Comet  which  shone  over  Carth- 
age for  22  nights.  Its  appearance  was  followed  by  the 
outbreak  of  the  great  war  between  Hannibal  and  the 
Romans,  and  by  a  terrible  earthquake  in  Greece. 

The  next  Comet  shone  in  204  B.  C.,  when  Hannibal 
suffered  his  first  bloody  defeat  by  Sempronius,  while 
Scipio,  Hannibal's  arch  enemy,  was  crossing  over  to 
Africa,  for  the  first  attack  upon  Carthage. 

The  appearance  of  the  next  Comet,  twenty  years  later, 
184  B.  C.,  which  shone  through  88  nights  over  Asia 
Minor  "with  a  horrible  lustre"  was  followed  by  the  death 
of  Hannibal.  Soothsayers  at  the  court  of  King  Prusias 
of  Bithynia,  in  Asia  Minor,  whither  Hannibal  had  fled 
from  the  Romans,  told  the  King  that  the  Comet  betok- 
ened Hannibal's  early  death.  This  so  wrought  on  Han- 
nibal's spirit  that  he  ended  his  life  with  poison. 

In  the  year  150  B.  C,  appeared  another  Comet  "of 

(35) 


horrible  size."  It  was  seen  for  many  nights  running 
all  over  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  Its  appearance  was 
followed  by  the  outbreak  of  the  third  great  Punic  War 
between  Rome  and  Carthage. 

Within  four  years  another  Comet,  blazing  over  north- 
ern Africa  in  146  B.  C.,  was  followed  by  the  fall  of 
Carthage,  which  was  stormed  and  utterly  destroyed  by 
the  Romans. 

Mithridates'  Star. 

Mithridates,  King  of  Pontus,  and  conqueror  of  Asia 
Minor,  another  arch  foe  of  the  Romans,  having  been 
born  under  a  Comet,  seems  to  have  fallen  under  the  bane 
of  Comets. 

During  the  Winter  of  134-135  B.  C.,  preceding 
Mithridates*  birth,  a  Comet  of  unusual  lustre  flared  over 
Asia  Minor  through  72  days.  This  Comet  was  so  bright 
that  its  long,  flaming  tail  was  plainly  visible  even  in  day 
time.  The  ancient  historian  Justinus  thus  described  it: 
"Its  splendour  eclipsed  that  of  the  midday  sun  and  oc- 
cupied the  fourth  part  of  Heaven." 

The  next  Comet,  burning  through  72  nights  again, 
preceded  Mithridates'  accession  to  the  throne  of  Pontus, 
119  B.  C. 

Mithridates'  fourth  Comet,  now  identified  as  Halley's 
Comet,  was  seen  over  Asia  Minor  through  the  Winter 
months  of  87-88  B.  C.,  just  before  the  horrible  massa- 
cre of  150,000  Italians  ordered  by  Mithridates.  . 

Twenty-five  years  later,  63  B.  C.,  Mithridates  saw  his 
Comet  for  the  last  time  when  his  own  son  rose  up  in 
arms  against  him.  The  omen  of  the  Comet  so  wrought 
on  Mithridates  that  he  first  poisoned  himself  and  then 
had  one  of  his  own  soldiers  despatch  him  with  his  sword. 

(36) 


Caesar's  Star. 

No  other  Comet  is  recorded  in  ancient  history  during 
this  century,  except  the  one  which  was  seen  shining  over 
Italy  preceding  the  birth  (July  n,  100  B.  C.)  of  Julius 
Caesar,  destined  to  become  "The  foremost  man  of  all 
this  world,"  as  Shakespeare  calls  him. 

"Caesar's  Comet"  as  it  came  to  be  known  (now  identi- 
fied as  Halley's  Comet)  appeared  again  over  Italy  dur- 
ing the  great  Civil  War  between  Marius  and  Sylla,  when 
Caesar  was  first  entering  into  public  affairs  and  earned 
his  spurs  as  a  warrior. 

"Caesar's  Comet"  shone  again  over  Rome  in  the  year 
60  B.  C.,  when  Julius  Caesar,  together  with  Pompey  and 
Crassus,  took  charge  of  the  government  of  Rome  and 
presently  seized  supreme  power  as  Consul  of  Rome. 

Ten  years  later  "Caesar's  Comet"  was  seen  once  more 
in  Italy  in  the  Winter  months  of  49-50  B.  C.,  when 
Caesar,  returning  from  his  conquest  of  Gaul,  crossed  the 
Rubicon  and  began  the  great  Civil  War  against  his  rival 
for  power,  Pompey. 

The  last  appearance  of  "Caesar's  Comet,"  was  in  44 
B.  C.,  on  the  death  of  Caesar.     Its  coming  was  foreseen 
in  a  dream  by  Caesar's  wife  Calpurnia,  who  warned  him 
of  the  omen,  as  immortalized  in  Shakespeare's  lines,  put 
Into  the  mouth  of  Caesar's  wife : 
"When  beggars  die,  there  are  no  Comets  seen, 
The    Heavens    themselves    blaze    forth    the    death    of 

Princes"; 

followed  by  Caesar's  famous  answer,  as  culled  from  Plut- 
arch by  Shakespeare : 

"What  can  be  avoided, 
Whose  end  is  purposed  by  the  mighty  gods? 
Yet  Caesar  shall  go  forth;  for  these  predictions 
Are  to  the  world  in  general  as  to  Caesar." 

(37) 


On  the  following  morning  Caesar  was  murdered  at  the 
foot  of  Pompey's  statue  in  the  Curia. 

Immediately  after  Caesar's  death,  records  the  Roman 
historian  Suetonius  in  his  "Life  of  Caesar" :  "A  Comet 
blazed  for  seven  nights  together,  rising  always  about 
eleven  o'clock,  visible  to  all  in  Rome.  It  was  taken  by 
all  to  be  the  soul  of  Caesar,  now  received  into  Heaven; 
for  which  reason,  accordingly,  Caesar  is  represented  in 
his  statue  with  a  star  on  his  brow." 

Only  one  more  Comet  is  recorded  in  ancient  history 
before  the  birth  of  Christ.  This  was  the  Comet,  now 
identified  as  Halley's  Comet,  which  shone  over  the  dense 
forests  of  Germany,  eleven  years  before  the  birth  of 
Christ,  when  Drusus,  the  brother  of  Tiberius,  was  war- 
ring against  the  ancient  Germans  and  robbing  them  of 
their  last  vestige  of  liberty.  At  the  same  time  fell  the 
death  of  Agrippa,  who  ruled  over  the  Roman  Empire 
in  the  absence  of  Augustus. 


THE  STAR  OF  BETHLEHEM 


^HE  coming  of  the  Messia,  according  to  the  sacred 
legends  of  the  Jews,  was  to  be  foretold  by  a  flam- 
ing star. 

Many  sacred  writers  have  held,  and  many  still  hold, 
as  did  the  distinguished  American  astronomer  R.  A. 
Proctor,  that  the  "Star  of  Bethlehem,"  whose  shining 
trail  guided  the  Wise  Men  from  The  East,  was  a  Comet. 
Lubienitius  in  his  "History  of  Comets"  expressly  men- 
tions the  Star  of  Bethlehem  as  the  most  important  Comet 
of  history. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  our  modern  astronomical  compu- 
tations prove  that  a  Comet  appeared  in  that  year  so  as  to 
be  visible  to  the  naked  eye  over  Arabia,  Syria,  and  the 
Holy  Land. 

When  this  Comet  appeared  Herod  was  King  of  Ju- 
dea.  On  the  appearance  of  the  Comet,  Herod  consulted 
the  oracle  of  the  Sibyl  in  Rome.  She  told  him  that  the 
Comet  shone  in  token  of  a  boy  destined  to  be  far  greater 
than  he. 

Herod  grew  so  afraid  at  this  that  he  caused  to  be 
murdered  his  own  two  infant  sons,  Aristobolus  and  Alex- 
ander, and  after  that  his  eldest  son,  the  boy  Antipater. 
Herod  further  ordered  the  massacre  of  all  male  infants 
born  in  Judea  under  this  Comet,  as  told  in  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew  (Chap.  II.,  Verse  i).  As  the  Comet  kept  on 
blazing  in  the  sky,  Herod,  becoming  desperate,  tried  to 
kill  himself.  Five  days  after  this  he  died  of  a  loathsome 
disease. 

Christian  painters  and  writers  from  olden  times  until 

(39) 


now,   accordingly  have  pictured  the  Star  of   Bethlehem 
as  a  Comet. 

Take  for  instance  this  description  of  "The  Light  in 
the  Sky"  as  given  by  Lew  Wallace  in  his  "Ben  Hur: 
A  Tale  of  the  Christ": 

"About  midnight  some  one  on  the  roof  cried  out : 
'What  light  is  that  in  the  sky?  Awake,  brethren,  awake 
and  see!' 

"The  people,  half  asleep,  sat  up  and  looked;  then  they 
became  wide  awake,  though  wonder  struck.  .  .  .  Soon 
the  entire  tenantry  of  the  house  and  court  and  enclosure 
were  out  gazing  at  the  sky. 

"And  this  is  what  they  saw :  A  ray  of  light,  beginning 
at  a  height  immeasurably  beyond  the  nearest  stars,  and 
dropping  obliquely  to  the  earth;  at  its  top,  a  diminishing 
point;  at  its  base,  many  furlongs  in  width;  its  sides  blend- 
ing softly  with  the  darkness  of  night;  its  core  a  roseate 
electrical  splendour.  The  apparition  seemed  to  rest  on  the 
nearest  mountain  southeast  of  the  town,  making  a  pale 
corona  along  the  line  of  the  summit.  The  khan  was 
touched  luminously  so  that  those  upon  the  roof  saw  each 
others'  faces  all  filled  with  wonder. 

"Steadily  the  ray  lingered. 

"  'Saw  you  ever  the  like?'  asked  one. 

"  'Can  it  be  that  a  star  has  burst  and  fallen?'  asked 
another,  his  tongue  faltering. 

"  'When  a  star  falls  its  light  goes  out/ 


"After  that  there  was  silence  on  the  housetop,  broken 
but  once  again  while  the  mystery  continued. 

"'Brethren!'  exclaimed  a  Jew  of  venerable  mien, 
'what  we  see  is  the  ladder  our  father  Jacob  saw  in  his 
dream.  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Our  Fathers!'  ' 

Meanwhile  the  Wise  Men  from  the  East,  as  described 

(40) 


in  the  same  story,  were  travelling  over  the  desert,  on  the 
alert  for  the  apparition  of  the  star,  whose  coming  had 
been  revealed  to  them. 

"Suddenly,  in  the  air  before  them,  not  farther  up  than 
a  low  hill-top,"  writes  Lew  Wallace,  "flared  a  lambent 
flame;  as  they  looked  at  it,  the  apparition  contracted  into 
a  focus  of  dazzling  lustre.  Their  hearts  beat  fast;  their 
souls  thrilled;  and  they  shouted  as  with  one  voice:  'The 
Star!  the  Star!  God  is  with  us!'  " 


(41) 


GREAT  EVENTS  LINKED  WITH 
COMETS  SINCE  CHRIST 


OINCE  the  time  of  Christ,  thanks  to  the  spread  of 
^  Christianity  and  learning,  with  the  growing  zeal 
for  keeping  records  and  studying  the  stars,  a  far  greater 
number  of  Comets  and  events  connected  therewith  have 
been  recorded. 

A  number  of  learned  writers  have  made  a  special  study 
of  the  history  of  Comets  and  their  effect  upon  man.  Long 
before  Lubienitius'  ponderous  work  on  the  subject  there 
were  other  histories  written  in  Latin  and  Arabic,  with 
references  to  which  his  book  abounds. 

Since  then  others  have  followed  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, notably  Pingre,  Hind,  Lalande,  Messier,  Chambers 
and  latterly  Messrs.  Crommelin  and  Cowell,  of  the 
Greenwich  Observatory. 

The  number  of  known  Comets  has  grown  immeasur- 
ably since  Galileo's  invention  of  the  telescope,  300  years 
ago,  and  our  later  perfections  of  this  instrument,  to- 
gether with  latter-day  devices  for  photographing  Comets 
invisible  to  the  naked  eye. 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  to  trace  the  possible  con- 
nection between  modern  events  and  Comets  that  were  seen 
only  by  astronomers.  Since  our  record  of  Comets  is  al- 
ready too  full,  we  shall  limit  our  story  of  the  Comets 
and  their  influence  upon  man  to  a  bare  recital  of  the 
most  important  events  connected  with  the  more  memor- 
able and  conspicuous  Comets  from  the  time  of  Christ 
until  now. 

(42) 


DATES  OF  COMETS   FOLLOWED   BY 
IMPORTANT  EVENTS 

A.  D. 

14 — A  Comet  preceded  the  death  of  Augustus,  the 
first  Emperor  of  Rome.  Earthquake  in  Italy. 

55 — Suicide  of  Pontius  Pilate,  the  judge  who  con- 
demned Christ. 

68 — Halley's  Comet.  Suicide  of  Nero,  persecutor  of 
Christians.  Siege  of  Jerusalem. 

73 — A  Comet  shone  180  days  over  Cyprus.  Earth- 
quake in  Cypress  in  which  10,000  persons  per- 
ished. 

79 — Death  of  Emperor  Vespasian,  who  began  the 
siege  of  Jerusalem.  The  Roman  historians  Dion 
Cassius  and  Suetonius  relate  that  Vespasian,  when 
taken  sick,  heard  his  astrologers  discussing  in  a 
low  tone  of  voice  the  Comet  which  was  then  visi- 
ble, which  they  said  predicted  his  death.  The 
Emperor  roused  angrily  and  said:  "This  hairy 
star  is  not  meant  for  me.  It  must  be  meant  for 
my  enemy,  the  King  of  the  Parthians,  for  he  is 
hairy,  while  I  am  bald." 

On  the  following  night  Vespasian  died  in  great 
pain,  and  the  Comet  was  seen  no  more. 

Shortly  after  Vespasian's  death  followed  the 
fierce  eruption  of  Mt.  Vesuvius,  Nov.  i,  which 
destroyed  the  two  flourishing  cities  of  Herculane- 
um  and  Pompeii. 

130 — A  Comet  shone  over  Holy  Land  for  39  nights, 
followed  by  destructive  earthquake  in  Holy  Land. 

(43) 


H5 — One  week's  Comet  over  Island  of  Rhodus.  Earth- 
quake in  Rhodus,  followed  by  famine  and  pestil- 
ence. 

217 — From  a  Comet  which  shone  for  eighteen  nights 
soothsayers  predicted  the  death  of  the  Roman 
Emperor,  Caracalla.  The  Emperor  was  mur- 
dered immediately  afterwards  by  his  rival  Mac- 
rinus. 

312 — A  Comet  in  the  sign  of  a  cross  seen  by  Constan- 
tine  the  Great  during  battle  of  Saxa  Rubra  under 
the  walls  of  Rome.  Constantine  was  victorious 
and  afterward  turned  to  Christian  faith. 

337 — A  Comet  seen  just  before  death  of  Constantine 
the  Great. 

373 — Halley's  Comet.  Beginning  of  tremendous 
migration  of  peoples  which  overran  all  Central 
Asia  and  Europe. 

399 — This  Comet  was  described  by  Nicephorus  as  "of 
prodigious  magnitude  and  horrible  aspect,  with 
a  point  like  a  sword  and  fiery  hair  reaching  nearly 
to  the  ground,  from  which  a  great  peril  to  the 
people  was  predicted."  Its  appearance  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  conquest  and  capture  of  Rome  by 
Gainas. 

410 — A  sword-shaped  Comet  shone  over  Italy  for  four 
months  until  the  third  week  in  August.  On  Aug. 
24  Rome  was  taken  and  plundered  by  Alaric, 
King  of  the  Visigoths.  This  marks  the  end  of  the 
old  Roman  Empire. 

442 — First  appearance  in  Europe  of  Attila,  "The 
Scourge  of  God,"  and  his  Hunnic  hordes. 

449-50 — Two  Comets  (now  believed  to  be  coming  and 
going  of  Halley's  Comet)  were  observed  over 
England  and  France.  First  invasion  of  England 
(44) 


by  the  Anglo-Saxons  under  Hengist  and  Horsa. 
Attila  overthrown  in  the  great  battle  on  the  Cata- 
launian  Fields,  at  which  a  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  warriors  fell,  among  them  Theoderic, 
the  King  of  the  Goths.  The  Roman  historian 
Callimachus  recorded  that  this  battle  was  pre- 
ceded by  a  brilliant  Comet  and  an  earthquake. 

453 — Death  of  Attila  and  end  of  his  Hunnic  empire. 

530 — Halley's  Comet.  Merlin,  the  British  seer,  pro- 
phesied from  this  Comet.  His  prophesies  came 
true. 

531 — Comet  observed  in  Constantinople  by  the  astron- 
omers of  Emperor  Justinian.  Earthquake  in 
Constantinople  followed  by  famine  and  uprising 
of  the  people  in  which  two  thousand  were  killed. 
Pestilence. 

538 — Terrible  famine  throughout  civilized  world,  so 
that  many  people  became  cannibals. 

547 — A  lance-shaped  Comet  over  Italy.  Ostro-Goths 
under  Totila  overrun  Italy.  Totila  storms  Rome. 

Mohamet's  Star. 

570 — Scimitar-shaped   Comet   over  Arabia.      Birth   of 

Mohamet. 
610 — Another    scimitar-shaped    Comet    over    Arabia. 

Mohamet  begins  preaching  the  Koran. 
622 — Flight  of  Mohamet  to  Medina. 
624 — Fourth  scimitar-shaped  Comet  over  Arabia  and 

Holy  Land.     Mohamet's  first  battle  for  the  new 

faith.     His  massacre  of  700  Jews. 
632 — Last  appearance  of  Mohamet's  Comet  during  first 

week  of  June.     Death  of  Mohamet  on  June  8  at 

Medina. 

(45) 


Charlemagne's  Star. 

800 — A  Comet  seen  during  Coronation  of  Charlemagne 
as  Emperor  of  Rome. 

814 — Torch-shaped  Comet  seen  in  Germany  during  the 
first  three  weeks  of  January.  Death  of  Charle- 
magne on  Jan.  28,  at  Aix  la  Chappelle.  The 
monk  Eginard  relates  in  his  chronicles  that  on  the 
appearance  of  the  Comet  all  those  at  Charle- 
magne's court  feared  for,  the  Emperor's  life. 
Eginard  preached  to  them  from  the  text  of  Isaiah 
not  to  believe  in  the  signs  of  the  heathens.  But 
Charlemagne  reproved  him,  saying  that  he  felt 
that  he  had  reason  to  thank  God  for  having  sent 
him  a  timely  warning  of  his  impending  death. 
Thereupon  the  Emperor  made  his  testament  and 
divided  his  empire  among  his  successors.  On  the 
day  following  the  disappearance  of  the  Comet,  he 
died. 

837 — Halley's  Comet  observed  in  France  by  King  Louis 
the  Debonair,  who  died  from  fear  of  it. 

876 — Disastrous  flood  in  Italy,  followed  by  plague. 

900 — Another  Comet  over  Italy.  Saracens  invade 
Italy. 

944 — Comet  with  an  immense  tail  over  Italy,  followed 

by  disastrous  earthquake. 

tooo — In  January  of  this  year  a  Comet  was  observed  all 
over  Europe.  Gigibertus  describes  it  "shaped  like 
a  horrible  serpent  and  so  bright  that  its  light  was 
seen  even  indoors."  It  was  generally  taken  to 
foretell  the  end  of  the  world, — the  millennium 
prophesied  in  the  Apocalypse.  When  it  was  fol- 
lowed soon  by  earthquakes,  floods  and  famine 
there  was  universal  panic  which  was  not  allayed 
until  the  end  of  the  "fateful  year." 

(46) 


1002 — A  Comet  over  England  and  Scandinavia.  Mas- 
sacre of  all  Danes  in  England  by  King  Ethelred. 

1066 — Halley's  Comet.  It  appeared  in  May  at  Easter 
time  and  shone  for  forty  nights,  waxing  and  wan- 
ing with  the  moon.  William  the  Conqueror 
haled  it  as  an  omen  of  destruction  to  Harold  of 
England  just  before  the  battle  of  Hastings. 

1077 — Comet  over  Italy  and  Germany.  Emperor  Henry 
IV.  of  Germany  was  excommunicated  by  the 
Pope,  followed  by  war  in  Italy  and  Germany. 

Crusaders'  Comets. 

1099 — Arabic  astronomers  record  a  Comet  in  the  shape 
of  a  scimitar  over  Arabia  and  the  Holy  Land  for 
six  weeks  in  Spring  and  early  Summer.  First  cru- 
sade and  storming  of  Jerusalem  by  the  crusaders 
on  July  15  after  a  siege  of  five  weeks.  Bloody 
massacre  of  Mohammedans. 

1 109 — Emperor  Henry  V.  of  Germany  enters  Rome  and 
makes  Pope  prisoner. 

1148-9 — Second  crusade.  Utter  destruction  of  whole 
army  of  French  and  German- crusaders. 

1200 — Comet  recorded  by  Hal  Ben  Rodoan,  an  Arab  as- 
tronomer, over  North  Africa.  Bloody  revolt  of 
Arab  warriors  in  Morocco. 

12 1 2 — Lance-shaped  Comet  shining  over  western  Europe 
for  eighteen  nights.  The  Children's  Crusade. 
Thousands  of  German  and  French  boy  crusaders 
perished  or  were  sold  into  slavery.  Bloody  inva- 
sion of  Tartar  hordes  into  Russia  and  Poland. 

1223^ — Preaching  of  fifth  crusade.  Outbreak  of  "Guelph 
and  Ghibelline"  war  between  Emperor  Frederick 
II.  of  Germany  and  Pope  Gregory  the  IX. 

(47) 


1264 — Very  bright  Comet  observed  shining  all  over 
Europe  for  three  months.  Pope  Urban  IV.  died 
on  the  night  of  the  Comet's  disappearance.  A 
Latin  verse  gained  great  currency  in  which  it  was 
said  that  the  Comet  portended  "disasters,  sick- 
ness, hunger,  and  war."  The  chronicles  of  that 
age  ascribe  to  this  Comet  besides  the  death  of  the 
Pope  a  famine  and  pestilence  in  Italy,  the  ravages 
of  the  Russians  into  Poland  and  of  the  Slavs  into 
Prussia. 

Comets  of  Bloodshed. 

1282 — An  immense  Comet  over  Italy.  Disastrous  earth- 
quake in  southern  Italy.  On  March  30,  a  fort- 
night after  the  first  appearance  of  the  Comet  fol- 
lowed the  massacre  of  all  Frenchmen  in  Sicily  on 
the  evening  of  Easter  Monday,  known  in  history 
as  the  "Sicilian  Vespers." 

1298 — Because  of  the  appearance  of  a  Comet  over  mid- 
dle Germany,  there  were  riots  in  Nurenberg  and 
other  neighbouring  cities  followed  by  a  general 
massacre  of  the  Jews  in  those  cities. 

1300 — A  brilliant  Comet  preceded  the  Jubilee  of  Pope 
Boniface  the  VIII.  The  Pope  interpreted  the 
Comet  as  a  happy  omen,  but  because  of  the  popu- 
lar dread  of  the  Comet  there  were  riots  and  blood 
shed  in  Rome  and  elsewhere  in  Italy.  The  chron- 
iclers of  the  times  pointed  out  the  significant  fact 
that  shortly  after  his  jubilee  Pope  Boniface  was 
made  a  prisoner  by  King  Philip  of  France,  caus- 
ing him  to  die  of  rage. 

Plague  Comets. 

1305 — A  Comet  "of  horrible  aspect"  burning  all  through 
Passion  Week  preceded  the  outbreak  of  the  ter- 

(48) 


rible  black  plague  which  swept  from  the  Orient 

all  over  Europe  and  Asia. 
1333 — Chinese  and  Arab  astronomers    record    a    bright 

Comet  over  China,  Turkestan  and  Persia.    Birth 

of  Tamerlane,  the  "Scourge  of  the  Nations"  at 

Samarkand,  in  Turkestan. 
1347 — A  Comet  precedes  the  "Black  Death,"  a  terrible 

pestilence  followed  by  famine  all  over  the  world. 

One  fourth  of  all    the    people    of    Europe    died. 

Fifteen  million  deaths  in  China, — twenty-five  mil- 
lion in  Europe. 
1363 — A  Comet  of  immense  size  shone  for  three  months 

over  northern  Europe.     Pestilence  and  famine  in 

England,  Poland  and  Russia. 
1378 — Halley's  Comet.     Pestilence  in  Germany.     Holy 

Church  is  rent    by  the  great    schism,    with    rival 

popes  at  Rome  and  Avignon. 

Tamerlane's   Star. 

1382 — Arab  astronomers  and  Chinese  report  a  very 
bright  Comet  which  shone  a  fortnight.  Tamer- 
lane and  his  hordes  overrun  Central  Asia.  Pesti- 
lence breaks  out  there  and  spreads  all  over  the 
world. 

1402 — Arab  astronomers  report  another  Comet  seen  all 
over  the  East.  Tamerlane  carries  war  into 
Europe  and  takes  Constantinople  by  storm.  Sul- 
tan Bayezid  is  taken  prisoner  by  Tamerlane  and 
is  carried  to  Asia  in  a  cage. 

1405 — Chinese  astronomers  record  a  spear-shaped 
Comet  over  China.  Tamerlane  dies  while  in- 
vading China. 

1456 — Halley's  Comet.  Bloody  war  between  the  Chris- 
tians and  the  Turks.  Battle  of  Belgrade. 

(49) 


1492 — Arab  astronomers  record  a  Comet  over  northern 
Africa  and  Spain.  Final  conquest  of  Granada 
from  the  Moors  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  of 
Spain.  Discovery  of  the  New  World. 

1500 — Sword-shaped  Comet  over  northern  Europe,  fol- 
lowed by  Tartar  invasion  into  Russia  and  Poland. 

1528 — A  Comet  noted  by  Ambroise  Pare,  who  re- 
corded that  many  people  fell  sick  and  died  of 
fright.  War  between  Emperor  Charles  V.  of 
Germany  and  Francis  I.  of  France,  with  fighting 
in  France,  Germany  and  Italy. 

1531 — Halley's  Comet.  Plague  in  Italy.  Great  schism 
in  the  Church.  Defection  of  German  Protestants 
from  Rome.  Henry  VIII.  of  England  declares 
English  Church  independent  of  Rome.  Sultan 
Soleyman  ravaged  Hungary.  Disastrous  floods 
in  Holland,  where  400,000  people  were  drowned. 

1556 — Emperor  Charles  V.  of  Germany  and  Spain,  on 
account  of  his  fear  of  the  Comet  that  appeared  in 
that  year,  abdicated  his  throne  and  became  a 
monk.  Wide-spread  wars  all  over  Europe.  The 
Turks  ravaged  Hungary.  Persecutions  of  Eng- 
lish Protestants  under  uBloody  Mary."  Many 
Protestants  burned  at  the  stake,  beheaded  or 
broken  on  the  rack. 

1572 — St.  Bartholomew's  Comet.  Massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew, when  30,000  Huguenots  were  slaugh- 
tered in  France. 

1577 — General  persecution  of  Huguenots  in  France,  fol- 
lowed by  Civil  War  in  France. 

1607 — A  Comet  seen  over  Constantinople   for  several 
weeks.     Wide-spread  war    on    the  part    of    the 
Turks  against  the  Persians  on  one  side,  the  Poles 
on  another,  and  against  Venice  on  the  third. 
(50) 


1618 — A  blood-coloured  Comet  observed  just  before  the 
execution  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  in  England.  A 
bloody  rising  of  the  Protestants  in  Bohemia,  fol- 
lowed by  the  outbreak  of  the  terrible  Thirty 
Years'  War  in  Germany  and  the  Netherlands. 
This  was  the  Comet  which  gave  rise  to  the  Ger- 
man school  rhyme: 

"Eight  things  a  Comet  always  brings, 
Wind,  Famine,  Plague  and  Death  to  Kings, 
War,  Earthquake,  Floods  and  Dire  Things." 

Louis  XIV  !s  Star. 

1 66 1 — Inspired  by. the  appearance  of  a  Comet,  a  horde 
of  fanatics  under  Venner,  a  cooper,  preached  the 
coming  of  the   "Fifth   Monarchy"   in   England, 
and  proclaimed  Jesus  Christ  as  their  only  King. 
The    fanatics    were    routed    and    put    to    death. 
Death   of   Mazarin,    the    "Master   of   France."      ^ 
Rise  of  Louis  XIV.,  the  most  powerful  ruler  of      /\ 
France.     French  war  against  the  Pope. 

1680 — This  Comet  was  studied  by  Halley,  in  Paris,  and 
by  Newton,  in  England.  It  was  called  "Heaven's 
Chariot."  Plague  in  Europe.  The  French  over- 
run Alsace  and  carried  war  into  Germany.  War 
between  Venice  and  the  Turks. 

1682 — Halley's  Comet.  War  in  Italy.  War  in  Hun- 
gary against  the  Turks. 

1689 — A  remarkable  Comet  observed  all  over  Europe, 
followed  by  war  all  over  Europe.  Wars  between 
France,  Germany,  England,  Spain  and  Italy.  The 
Rhine  lands  were  harried  by  the  French  with  fire 
and  sword,  rendering  4,000,000,  people  home- 
less. Burning  of  the  castle  of  Heidelberg  by  the 
French.  Religious  war  in  Ireland  and  Scotland. 

(SO 


Siege  of    Londonderry  and  Dundee.     Battle    of 
Newton  Butler  in  Ireland. 
1729 — War  between  France,  England  and  Spain. 

Frederick  the  Great's  Star. 

1744 — A  six-tailed  Comet  observed  in  Germany  just  be- 
fore the  death  of  Emperor  Charles  VII.  His 
death  followed  by  war  between  Frederick  the 
Great  and  Maria  Teresa  of  Austria.  War 
spreads  to  England,  Holland,  France,  Spain  and 
Italy.  A  British  fleet  beaten  by  French  and 
Spaniards  off  Toulon. 

1755 — A  Comet  precedes  earthquake  of  Lisbon,  by 
which  40,000  people  lost  their  lives. 

1759 — Halley's  Comet.  Seven  Years'  War  in  Germany. 
Frederick  the  Great  overthrown  in  four  bloody 
battles.  French  lose  Canada  by  their  disastrous 
defeat  of  the  plains  of  Abraham,  and  lose  India 
by  the  loss  of  their  fleet  through  three  successive 
defeats  on  the  sea. 

Napoleon's  Star. 

1769 — "Napoleon's  Comet."  A  Comet  of  unusual  red 
lustre  was  observed  over  Italy  and  France. 
French  overrun  Corsica.  Bloody  massacre  of 
Corsicans.  Birth  of  Napoleon  on  August  15  in 
Corsica,  just  after  the  Comet  was  seen  no  more. 

1811-12 — This  huge  Comet  was  one  of  the  most  famous 
Comets  of  modern  times.  It  was  first  seen  in 
France  on  March  26,  1811,  and  was  last  observed 
over  southern  Russia  on  August  17,  181.2 — an 
appearance  of  seventeen  months,  the  longest  on 
record.  For  a  while  it  had  two  tails,  then  only 
one.  The  length  of  this  tail  was  estimated  as 
100,000,000  miles.  It  was  called  "Napoleon's 
Comet."  Under  its  lustre  Napoleon  gathered 

(52) 


THE'   GREAT    COMET    OF    1811. 


his  "grand  armee,"  the  greatest  army  assembled 
in  Europe  since  Xerxes,  and  invaded  Russia. 
Wars  were  fought  at  the  same  time  in  Portugal 
and  Spain,  where  the  British  stormed  Ciudad 
Rodrigo  and  Badajos;  and  in  America,  where 
Harrison's  victory  over  the  Indians  under 
Tecumseh  at  Tippecanoe,  and  the  seahght  be- 
tween the  "President"  and  "Little  Belt"  ushered 
in  the  War  of  1812.  In  Egypt  the  Comet  was 
taken  as  an  omen  of  the  bloody  massacre  of  the 
Mamelukes  prepetrated  at  Cairo. 

1821 — "Napoleon's  Comet."  Seen  one  night  only  over 
France  and  over  St.  Helena  the  night  before  the 
death  of  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena. 

1823 — A  Comet  much  mentioned  by  Spanish  writers. 
While  it  shone  over  Spain,  South  America  and  the 
Mediterranean,  the  French  overran  Spain  and  re- 
instated the  Spanish  king.  Revival  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  and  bloody  persecutions  of  the  revolu- 
tionists. War  of  Independence  in  Central  and 
South  America.  Bloody  war  of  Greek  Inde- 
pendence. 

1835-6 — Halley's  Comet.  New  York  City  all  but  de- 
stroyed by  fire.  Zulu  massacre  of  Boers  at 
Weenen.  Mexican  massacre  of  Americans  at  the 
Alamo.  Wars  throughout  South  America. 

1843— Another  famous  Comet  seen  all  over  the  world 
during  the  Spring  of  that  year.  Especially  bril- 
liant in  the  Southern  Hemisphere  and  in  India. 
War  in  India  on  the  part  of  the  British  against 
Afghanistan,  Beluchistan,  Scinde  and  against  the 
Sikhs. 

1848— Encke's  famous  periodic  Comet.     Bloody  revolu- 
tionary risings  and  civil  wars  in  France,  Hungary, 
Bohemia,  Austria,  Germany,  Italy  and  Poland. 
(54) 


1858-9 — Donati's  Comet.  This  Comet,  which  ap- 
peared to  be  charging  straight  down  from  the 
zenith,  and  had  a  curved  tail,  was  observed  from 
June  1858  to  April  1859.  ^  was  seen  at  lts 
brightest  in  the  South,  in  Italy,  Mexico  and  in  the 
Far  East.  While  it  shone  over  the  Far  East 
there  were  bloody  wars  between  the  British  and 
the  risen  people  of  India;  between  the  British  and 
the  Chinese,  who  objected  to  having  opium  thrust 
upon  them;  while  Japan  was  in  the  throes  of 
revolution  and  civil  war.  In  Mexico  the  standard 
of  revolt  against  the  clericals  was  raised  by 
Juarez,  thus  plunging  Mexico  into  civil  war  and 
war  with  France.  Immediately  after  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  Comet  war  broke  out  in  Italy 
between  the  French  and  Italians  on  one  side  and 
the  Austrians  on  the  other,  ending  in  the  bloody 
Battle  of  Solferino. 

Civil  War  Comets. 

1 861— "First 'Civil  War  Comet."  The  brightest  Comet 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Sir  John  Herschel, 
the  great  English  astronomer,  said  of  this  Comet: 
"It  far  exceeded  in  brightness  any  Comet  I  have 
before  observed,  those  of  1811  and  the  recent 
splendid  one  of  1858  not  excepted."  The  Comet 
was  first  seen  by  a  layman,  and  appeared 
at  its  brightest  during  the  Summer  months 
in  North  America.  Its  coming  was  heralded  as 
a  token  of  the  great  Civil  War  which  broke  out 
then  in  America. 

1862— "Second  Civil  War  Comet."  Another  Comet  of 
very  peculiar  appearance,  with  jets  of  flame  flar- 
ing from  its  head,  showed  itself  during  the  Sum- 
mer months  in  North  America.  The  Civil.  War 

(55) 


3 


was  then  at  its  height.  The  coming  of  the  Comet 
was  taken  to  herald  the  bloody  battles  of  Shiloh, 
Williamsburg,  Seven  Days,  Seven  Pines,  Cedar 
Mountain  and  Antietam,  all  fought  that  year 
after  the  Comet's  appearance. 

1874 — Coggia's  Comet.  This  Comet  was  seen  at  its 
brightest  over  Southern  France  and  Spain  during 
the  Summer  months  of  that  year.  Spain  was  then 
in  the  throes  of  the  bloody  Carlist  War. 

Garfeld's  Comet. 

1 88 1 — Garfield's  Comet.  This  Comet  showed  itself  for 
a  few  nights  only  in  March  during  the  week  fol- 
lowing President  Garfield's  inauguration.  It  was 
observed  also  in  Russia.  On  March  13,  Emperor 
Alexander  II.  of  Russia,  was  assassinated  with  a 
bomb.  Three  months  later  President  Garfield 
was  assassinated  in  Washington. 

War  Comets. 

1882 — Comet  of  Tel-el-Kebir.  A  Comet  with  two  tails 
was  seen  at  its  brightest  over  Egypt  during  the 
first  two  weeks  of  September.  Egypt  was  then  in 
the  midst  of  Arabi  Pasha's  uprising  against  the 
British.  On  September  18,  when  the  Comet  was 
last  seen,  Arabi  Pasha  was  overthrown  by  Gen- 
eral Wolseley  in  the  bloody  battle  of  Tel-el-Kebir. 

1904-5 — Manchurian  War  Comet.  From  the  early  part 
of  February,  1904,  until  Midsummer,  1905, 
Chinese  observers  recorded  the  appearance  of  a 
Comet  over  Northern  China.  Throughout  that 
period  Manchuria  was  ravaged  by  the  bloody 
war  between  the  Japanese  and  Russians. 

Earthquake  Comets. 

1906 — San  Francisco  Comet.     A  Comet  discovered  by 

(57) 


Ross  on  March  17,  remaining  visible  for  one 
month.  Observed  from  the  Lick  Observatory  in 
California.  On  April  17  came  the  California 
earthquake  and  burning  of  San  Francisco. 

1908 — Morehouse's   Comet.     Visible   for  more  than   a 
month,  during  the   autumn.     In  Italy  it  was  in- 
terpreted afterward  as  an  omen  foreboding  the 
Messina  earthquake  late  in  the  year. 
This  Year's  Comets. 

1910 — Inness'  Comet,  otherwise  known  as  "1910  A." 
An  unexpected  Comet  of  short  duration  during 
January.  On  the  appearance  of  this  Comet 
Madame  de  Thebes,  a  French  astrologer,  pre- 
dicted floods  and  general  disaster  for  France. 
The  disappearance  of  the  Comet  in  France  was 
followed  by  unprecedented  rains  arid  floods  which 
covered  one-fourth  of  France  with  water  and  in- 
undated Paris,  completely  submerging  all  the 
bridges  over  the  Seine.  Floods  also  in  Italy  and 
Germany.  This  Comet  was  likewise  observed  in 
China  late  in  January,  where  it  caused  universal 
consternation. 

1910 — Pidoux's  Comet.  Another  unexpected  Comet 
was  first  observed  by  Pidoux,  in  Geneva,  during 
a  few  nights  late  in  February.  It  is  recorded  as- 
tronomically as  "1910  B.".  Its  fleeting  observa- 
tions by  astronomers  were  followed  by  Socialist 
franchise  riots  in  Germany  and  by  the  labour  riots 
of  Philadelphia,  with  widespread  bloodshed  be- 
tween the  rioters  and  the  constabulary. 

1910 — Halley's  Comet  of  this  year  was  first  "picked  up" 
by  Dr.  Wolf,  in  Germany.  Already  various  as- 
trologers have  foretold  disaster  from  its  coming. 
It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  their  predictions 
will  come  true. 

(58) 


THE    GREAT   COMET   OF    1882,   ON   OCTOBER   9,    AT    4    A.    M. 


HALLEY'S  BALEFUL  COMET 

A  MONG  all  the  stars  known  in  astronomy,  the 
•f*-  periodically  returning  Comet  now  known  as  Hal- 
ley's  Comet  has  the  most  baleful  record. 

In  this  Comet's  wake,  after  every  one  of  its  recorded 
appearances,  there  have  always  followed  terrible  dis- 
asters. 

Not  only  war  and  battles,  or  other  deeds  of  blood- 
shed, such  as  massacres  and  murders,  but  each  of  the 
dread  disasters  that  are  held  to  go  with  Comets  have 
followed  along  one  after  the  other  in  this  Comet's  train. 

Of  the  eight  baneful  after-effects  of  Comets  mentioned 
in  the  old  German  ditty  that  has  been  sung  in  the  Father- 
land ever  since  the  great  Comet  which  ushered  in  the 
dreadful  Thirty  Years'  War, 

uWind,  Famine,  Plague  and  Death  to  Kings 
War,  Earthquakes,  Floods  and  Dire  Things," 

Halley's  Comet  is  known  to  have  preceded  each  and 
every  form  of  these  evils  in  turn. 

Directly  after  each  return  of  Halley's  Comet  there 
has  always  followed  somewhere  within  the  influence  of  its 
rays  one  or  other  of  those  "dire  things," — a  flood,  an 
earthquake,  a  hurricane,  famine,  plague,  war,  bloodshed, 
or  the  sudden  death  of  a  ruler. 

Thanks  to  the  careful  work  of  such  painstaking  as- 
tronomers and  historians  as  Lubienitius,  Pingre,  Dionys 
de  Sejour,  J.  Russell  Hind,  Laugier,  and  Messrs.  Cowell 
and  Crommelin,  the  records  of  great  events  connected 
with  Halley's  Comet  have  been  traced  back  nearly  2,000 
years,  to  the  days  before  Christ. 


Among  the  signal  events  following  in  the  train  of  this 
Comet  there  have  been  so  many  bloody  massacres  and 
appalling  disasters  that  Halley's  Comet  now  has  the 
ominous  distinction  of  being  the  bloodiest  of  all  stars  of 
ill  omen. 

Herewith  follows  the  story  of  this  Comet's  periodic 
appearances  in  history  and  of  the  events  connected  there- 
with, as  traced  back  from  its  last  return  in  1835  to  its 
first  recorded  entrance  into  the  history  of  mankind. 

1835-1836 

T_J  ALLEY'S  Comet  last  appeared  in  the  Summer  of 
1835,  and  was  seen  until  Spring  of  the  following 
year. 

It  was  first  discerned  by  Father  Dumouchel  with  a 
powerful  telescope  from  the  observatory  of  the  Collegio 
Romano  in  Rome  on  the  night  of  August  6,  1835. 
Father  Dumouchel,  who  had  been  watching  for  it  many 
months,  picked  it  up  close  to  the  spot  in  the  heavens  that 
Rosenberger,  a  German  astronomer,  had  predicted  for 
its  appearance  .on  that  date. 

The  last  astronomer  to  see  the  Comet  was  Sir  John 
Herschel,  who  observed  it  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
until  the  middle  of  May,  1836. 

Other  noted  astronomers  who  made  observations  of  it 
were  Arago,  Struve,  Bessel,  Kaiser,  Sir  Thomas  Maclear, 
Admiral  Smyth,  Baron  Damoiseau  and  Count  Ponte- 
coulant. 

This  last  astronomer,  many  years  before,  had  com- 
puted the  exact  time  of  its  coming  and  came  within  four 
days  of  it.  For  this  brilliant  feat  Count  Pontecoulant 
received  a  gold  medal  from  the  French  Academy  of 
Sciences. 

(61) 


HALLEY'S  COMET  OF   1835,  FROM  A  DRAWING  BY  ROSENBERGER. 


The  German  astronomer,  Rosenberger,  who  had  like- 
wise computed  the  Comet's  return,  coming  within  five 
days  of  its  passage  nearest  to  the  Sun,  received  a  similar 
gold  medal  from  the  Royal  Astronomical  Society  of 
Great  Britain. 

Professor  Struve,  who  studied  the  Comet  through  the 
great  telescope  at  Dorpat  in  Russia,  described  it  as  "glow- 
ing like  a  red-hot  coal  of  oblong  form." 

Bessel,  who  observed  it  from  the  Koenigsberg  obser- 
vatory in  Northern  Germany,  described  the  Comet's 
appearance  as  that  of  "a  blazing  rocket,  the  flame  from 
which  was  driven  aside  as  by  a  strong  gale,  or  as  the 
stream  of  fire  from  the  discharge  of  a  cannon  when  the 
sparks  and  smoke  are  carried  backwards  by  the  wind." 

Struve  at  Koenigsberg  and  Kaiser  at  Leyden  were  the 
first  to  see  the  Comet  with  their  naked  eyes  in  the  third 
week  of  September. 

Immediately  after  the  Comet  became  generally  visible 
in  the  Old  World  the  bubonic  plague,  known  of  old  as  the 
"Black  Death,"  broke  out  in  Egypt.  In  the  City  of  Alex- 
andria alone  9,000  people  died  on  one  day.  By  the 
Moslems  this  calamity  was  generally  attributed  to  the 
evil  influence  of  the  Comet. 

In  America  the  Comet  became  visible  to  the  naked  eye 
only  late  in  the  year.  Then,  on  its  approach  to  the  Sun, 
it  was  lost  to  view  and  passed  over  to  the  Southern  Hemi- 
sphere where  it  was  next  observed  by  Sir  John  Herschel 
in  South  Africa. 

Shortly  after  its  brief  blaze  over  North  America  the 
great  "New  York  Fire"  laid  waste  the  entire  business 
section  of  the  biggest  city  in  the  New  World.  All  the 
commercial  centre  of  the  city,  including  the  richest  firms 
and  largest  commercial  warehouses,  were  laid  in  ashes. 
The  fire  raged  through  days  and  nights.  In  all,  530 

(63) 


houses  burned  down  and  $18,000,000  of  property  was 
consumed.  Owing  to  the  intense  cold,  the  sufferings  of 
the  homeless  were  pitiable. 

Down  in  Florida,  at  the  same  time,  Osceola,  the  chief- 
tain of  the  Seminole  Indians,  called  upon  the  Comet  as 
a  signal  for  war  against  the  whites.  The  Indians  called 
the  Comet  "Big  Knife  in  the  Sky." 

The  war  began  with  a  bloody  massacre  of  American 
soldiers  under  General  Wiley  Thompson  at  Fort  King. 
All  were  slaughtered.  Osceola  scalped  General  Thomp- 
son with  his  own  hands. 

On  the  same  day,  Major  Bade  of  the  American  Army, 
who  was  leading  a  relief  expedition  into  Florida  from 
Tampa  Bay,  was  ambushed  by  the  Indians  near  Wahoo 
Swamp  and  was  massacred  with  his  men.  Of  the  whole 
expedition  only  four  men  escaped  death. 

Within  forty-eight  hours  of  this  horrible  massacre 
came  another  bloody  Indian  fight  on  the  banks  of  the 
Big  Withlacoochee. 

With  the  passing  of  the  Comet  to  the  Southern  Hemi- 
sphere, bloody  wars  broke  out  one  after  another  in  Mex- 
ico, Cuba,  Central  America,  Ecuador,  Bolivia,  Peru  and 
Argentinia.  All  those  countries  were  in  a  welter  of 
blood. 

At  the  same  time  the  American  settlers  of  Texas  de- 
clared themselves  independent  and  made  open  war  on 
Mexico.  The  war  began  with  the  bloody  battle  of  Gon- 
zales,  in  which  500  American  frontiersmen  fought  and 
defeated  over  a  thousand  Mexican  soldiers.  This  was 
followed  by  other  fierce  fights  at  Goliad  and  Bexar. 

Next  came  the  bloody  massacre  of  the  Alamo,  when 
all  of  Jim  Bowie's  and  Davy  Crockett's  American  fol- 
lowers were  killed  in  an  all  night  fight.  Out  of  200 
Americans  every  man  fell  at  his  post.  This  was  the  deed 

(64) 


of  blood  on  which  Joaquin  Miller  wrote  his  stirring  Bal- 
lad of  the  Alamo. 

"Santa  Ana  came  storming  as  a  storm  might  come, — 
There  was  rumble  of  cannon;  there  was  rattle  of  blade; 
There  was  cavalry,   infantry,  bugle  and  drum, — 
Full  seven  thousand,  in  pomp  and  parade, 
The  chivalry,   flower  of  Mexico, 
And  a  gaunt  two  hundred  in  the  Alamo." 

One  month  before  the  final  disappearance  of  the 
Comet,  the  Texas  War  came  to  an  end  with  the  bloody 
battle  of  San  Jacinto,  when  Sam  Houston,  with  800 
American  frontiersmen,  defeated  1,500  Mexicans,  and 
made  a  prisoner  of  President  Santa  Ana  of  Mexico. 

When  the  Comet  had  passed  to  the  Southern  Hemi- 
sphere, it  was  seen  at  its  brightest  in  South  Africa. 

The  pious  Boers  of  Cape  Colony  understood  it  to  be 
a  sign  from  heaven  and  forthwith  set  out  on  their  great 
trek  across  the  Orange  and  Vaal  rivers,  where  they 
founded  the  Orange  Free  State  and  Transvaal  Re- 
public. 

Thus  the  Comet  was  the  signal  for  the  first  blood 
drawn  in  the  long  fight  between  the  British  and  Boers. 

A  little  later,  though,  the  Boers  found  another,  more 
woful  significance  for  the  blazing  of  the  Comet. 

Under  the  leadership  of  Piet  Relief,  a  thousand  Boer 
families  had  trekked  across  the  Drakensberg  Mountains 
into  Natal.  A  solemn  treaty  of  peace  with  the  Zulu 
warriors  was  entered  into  with  Dingaan,  the  chief  of  the 
Zulus  at  Dingaan's  Kraal.  Suddenly  the  Zulus  pounced 
upon  the  unsuspecting  Piet  Relief  and  his  sixty-five  Boer 
followers  and  massacred  them  to  a  man. 

Then  the  Zulus,  numbering  some  10,000  warriors, 
swept  out  into  the  veldt  and  made  for  the  Boer  wagon 

(65) 


trains.  Near  Colenso,  at  a  spot  called  Weenen  (weep- 
ing), in  remembrance  of  the  dreadful  tragedy  there 
perpetrated,  the  Zulus  overwhelmed  the  Boer  laager 
and  slaughtered  all  its  inmates — 41  men,  56  women, 
185  children  and  250  Kaffir  slaves. 

After  this  bloody  massacre,  equalling  in  horror  the 
Massacre  of  the  Alamo  on  the  other  side  of  the  world, 
the  Comet  of  1835-36  was  seen  no  more. 

1758-1759 

THIS  was  the  first  return  of  the  Comet  predicted  by 
Halley.  Hence  it  must  be  reckoned  as  the  first 
appearance  of  "Halley's  Comet"  under  his  name. 

It  was  first  seen  on  Christmas  night,  1758,  by  John 
Palitsch,  a  Saxon  farmer,  near  Dresden,  who  was 
looking  for  it  with  a  self-constructed  telescope  of  eight- 
foot  focus.  The  Comet  did  not  become  visible  to  the 
naked  eye  until  well  into  17.59.  It  pa^sed_around  the 
sun  on  March  12,  1759.  After  that  it  was  seen  through- 
out Europe  during  April  and  May,  appearing  at  its 
brightest  during  the  first  week  in  May.  Later  it  was 
seen  to  advantage  in  the  Southern  Hemisphere. 

In  Germany,  where  it  was  seen  at  its  fiercest,  the 
Comet  was  taken  as  a  token  of  the  bloody  Seven  Years' 
War,  which  was  then  being  fought  between  Frederick 
the  Great  and  his  enemies  on  all  sides. 

The  ominous  Comet  had  scarcely  vanished  from  view 
when  all  Germany  was  overrun  by  marching  armies 
from  France,  from  Austria,  from  Russia. 

The  French,  under  the  Duke  of  Broglie,  overthrew 
the  Germans,  under  the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  at  Bergen, 
and  seized  the  city  of  Frankfurt.  Then  came  the  bloody 
battle  of  Minden,  in  which  two  large  French  armies 

(66) 


were  beaten.  Meanwhile  the  Russians  were  march- 
ing into  Prussia,  and  another  bloody  battle  was  fought 
at  Kay  in  mid-summer. 

Within  a  fortnight  King  Frederick  the  Great  and  his 
whole  army  were  overthrown  by  the  Austrians  and  Rus- 
sians in  the  disastrous  battle  of  Kunersdorf. 

Another  Prussian  army  was  overcome  at  Maxen, 
where  13,000  Prussians  were  taken. 

Altogether,  during  this  year's  campaigns,  several  hun- 
dred thousand  soldiers  lost  their  lives. 

It  was  the  worst  year  of  the  Seven  Years'  War  for 
Frederick  the  Great  and  his  soldiers,  who  attributed  their 
bloody  defeats  to  the  ill  omen  of  the  Comet. 

In  other  parts  of  the  world,  likewise,  the  coming  of 
the  Comet  was  followed  by  widespread  war  and  bloody 
fighting. 

For  the  French,  the  Comet  signalled  disaster  after  dis- 
aster. After  their  armies  had  been  beaten  in  Germany, 
their  navy  was  defeated  on  August  17  in  a  great  sea 
fight  in  the  Bay  of  Lagos,  on  the  coast  of  Portugal.  Six 
weeks  later  there  was  another  bloody  sea  fight  between 
the  British  and  French,  when  Admiral  Pocock  inflicted 
a  telling  defeat  on  the  French  fleet. 

Then  came  the  final  French  naval  disaster  off  Quib- 
eron,  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  when  Admiral  Hawke  de- 
stroyed French  naval  power  by  sinking  or  blowing  up 
over  a  score  of  the  French  fighting  ships.  This  bloody 
defeat  was  a  disaster  of  untold  consequences  to  the 
French,  since  it  meant  the  loss  of  India. 

But  this  was  not  all  that  this  Comet  of  ill  omen  had 
brought  to  the  French. 

On  September  i3th  of  that  year  the  French  lost  their 
strongest  hold  on  America  in  the  disastrous  defeat  in- 
flicted upon  them  by  General  Wolfe  in  the  bloody  battle 

(67) 


on  the  Plains  of  Abraham,  where  Wolfe  himself  fell 
fighting.  On  the  French  side,  General  Montcalm,  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  was  mortally  wounded.  This 
meant  the  loss  of  Quebec  and  of  all  Canada  to  the 
French,  an  event  of  far-reaching  importance  that  has 
changed  the  destiny  of  all  America  and  of  the  modern 
world. 


1682 

THE  Comet  which  put  Halley  on  the  right  track  in 
his  theories  of  Comets,  first  came  into  view  on  the 
night  of  August  15,  1682.  It  was  first  detected  by  Flam- 
steed's  assistant  at  the  Greenwich  Observatory,  while 
searching  the  northern  heavens  with  a  telescope. 

Flamsteed,  the  first  Astronomer  Royal,  and  Halley, 
his  successor,  kept  a  close  watch  upon  the  Comet  every 
night,  and  followed  its  course  over  the  sky.  Others  who 
watched  it  were  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Cassini,  Picard  and 
La  Hire  in  Paris,  Baert  at  Toulon,  Kirch  and  Zimmer- 
mann  in  Germany,  Montanari  at  Padua,  and  Hevelius 
in  Dantsic.  They  observed  that  the  tail  lengthened  con- 
siderably as  the  Comet  came  nearer  the  sun.  Later  a 
jet  of  luminous  matter  was  seen  shooting  out  toward  the 
sun,  which  afterward  fell  back  into  the  tail.  Hevelius 
has  left  us  a  drawing  of  this  phenomenon. 

On  November  nth,  Halley  found  that  the  Comet  had 
come  within  a  semi-diameter  of  the  path  of  our  earth. 
This  startling  discovery  caused  Halley  to  reflect  what 
might  happen  if  the  earth  and  the  Comet  had  arrived 
at  the  same  time  at  the  spot  in  space  where  their  two 
orbits  intersect.  Assuming  as  he  did  that  the  mass  of  the 
Comet  was  considerably  larger  than  our  earth,  he  de- 
clared: "If  so  large  a  body  with  so  rapid  a  motion  were 

(68) 


HALLEY'S  COMET,  JANUARY  9,    1683,  AS   DRAWN 
BY  HEVELIUS. 


THE    COMET    OF    1682,    AS    REPRESENTED    IN    THE    NUREMBURG 
CHRONICLE. 


MEDAL   STRUCK   IN   GERMANY   TO    ALLAY   THE    TERROR   CAUSED 
BY    THE    COMET    OF    1680-81. 


TRANSLATION    OF    INSCRIPTION: 

"THE    STAR  THREATENS   EVIL  THINGS— ONLY  TRUST! 
GOD  WILL  MAKE  IT  TURN  OUT  WELL." 


to  strike  the  earth — a  thing  by  no  means  impossible — 
the  shock  might  reduce  this  beautiful  world  to  its  original 
chaos." 

Others  beside  Halley  took  alarm  at  the  Comet.  They 
called  it  "The  Chariot  of  Fire." 

Dr.  Whiston — he  who  succeeded  Newton  in  the  Lu- 
casian  chair  of  mathematics  at  Cambridge — in  a  mo- 
ment of  prophetic  vision  fervently  declared  that  this 
Comet  was  God's  agent  that  would  bring  about  the 
General  Conflagration  by  involving  the  world  in  flames. 

In  America,  the  Rev.  Increase  Mather,  President  of 
Harvard  College,  on  the  appearance  of  the  Comet  in 
New  England,  preached  his  great  sermon  on  "Heaven's 
Alarm  to  the  World  .  .  .  wherein  is  shown  that 
fearful  sights  and  signs  in  the  Heavens  are  the  presages 
of  great  calamities  at  hand." 

Increase  Mather's  warning  was  handed  down  as  an 
inspired  prophesy,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  English 
settlers  in  North  America  soon  afterwards  got  into 
bloody  warfare  with  the  Indians.  The  war  raged  at 
its  fiercest  in  the  Carolinas,  where  the  English  settlers 
made  war  upon  the  redskins  simply  for  the  purpose  of 
taking  them  captive  and  selling  them  into  slavery  in  the 
West  Indies. 

To  the  Indians  the  Comet  appeared  as  a  sign  of  ill 
omen,  as  shown  by  their  frequent  references  to  it  dur- 
ing the  parleys  with  the  white  men. 

The  Comet  was  shining  at  its  fiercest  when  the  six 
greatest  chiefs  of  the  Susquehanna  nation  were  enticed 
into  a  pretended  council  of  peace  with  the  white  men, 
only  to  be  foully  murdered  with  all  their  followers. 

While  this  was  going  on  in  America,  the  Comet  gave 
the  signal  in  India  for  the  first  hostilities  there  upon  the 
white  settlers  from  Portugal,  as  well  as  for  the  outbreak 

(TO) 


of  the  bloody  Mahralta  War,  which  ravaged  India  for 
a  generation  to  come. 

Nearer  East,  the  Turks,  under  the  leadership  of  Mo- 
hammed Bey,  ravaged  Egypt,  while,  on  the  other  side, 
a  Turkish  army  under  Kara  Mustapha  carried  war  into 
Hungary,  to  the  very  gates  of  Vienna,  until  Emperor 
Leopold  felt  constrained  to  call  for  help  from  Sobieski, 
the  warrior  king  of  the  Poles. 

In  Europe  the  French  overran  Alsace,  and  suddenly 
seized  the  German  city  of  Strasburg. 

At  the  same  time  the  bubonic  plague  broke  out  in 
North  Germany.  In  the  little  university  town  of  Halle 
alone,  within  a  few  days,  4,397  people  died  out  of  a  total 
population  of  ten  thousand. 

It  was  then  that  medals  were  struck  off  in  Germany 
with  a  design  of  the  comet  on  their  face,  and  an  in- 
scription imploring  God  to  avert  the  evils  threatened 
by  the  Comet: 

"The  star  threatens  evil  things; 
Only  trust !     God  will  make  it  right." 

1607 

/T^HE  Comet  this  year  was  seen  all  over  Europe.  The 
best  observations  of  it  were  made  by  Kepler  and 
Longomontanus  (Langberger).  It  was  seen  at  its 
brightest  in  England. 

Shortly  after  its  appearance  over  England,  there  came 
freshets  and  floods  which  completely  submerged  the 
richest  counties  of  England.  In  Somersetshire  and 
Gloucestershire  the  water  rose  above  the  tops  of  the 
houses.  This  was  followed  by  a  visitation  of  the  plague. 

In  Ireland  the  Comet  was  taken  as  an  omen  of  the 
fate  of  Londonderry,  where  the  Irish  rebels,  suddenly 


seizing  the  city,  massacred  Sir  George  Powlett  and  all 
his  English  garrison. 

In  Germany  the  Comet  was  taken  as  a  token  of  the 
war  then  brewing  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Ger- 
man Protestant  Princes — the  so-called  Protestant  League 
— which  ushered  in  the  dreadful  Thirty  Years'  War  in 
Germany. 

Off  Gibraltar,  a  Dutch  fleet  completely  destroyed  a 
fleet  of  Spanish  war  galleons,  thereby  crippling  Spanish 
sea  power  for  a  generation  to  come. 

Meanwhile,  in  America,  the  early  settlers  in  Virginia, 
led  by  John  Smith,  found  themselves  beset  by  the  red- 
skins, who  were  incited  to  war  by  the  appearance  of  the 
Comet.  They  called  it  "Red  Knife  in  the  Sky."  Dur- 
ing the  war,  John  Smith  was  taken  prisoner,  and  escaped 
with  his  life  only  through  the  intercession  of  Pocahontas, 
the  daughter  of  Powhattan. 

1531 

E  Comet  was  first  sighted  by  the  German  astro- 
nomer  Bienewitz  ("Apianus")  in  midsummer  of  this 
year.  Zwingli  preached  about  it  as  an  omen  of  disaster. 

German  astrologers  regarded  it  as  a  herald  of  the 
wars  between  Spain  and  France,  which  broke  out  in  that 
year,  and  of  the  bloody  war  carried  into  Hungary  by  the 
Turks  under  Soleyman,  who  ravaged  the  Danube  country 
to  the  very  walls  of  Vienna.  These  wars  were  fol- 
lowed by  a  visitation  of  the  black  plague. 

In  the  Netherlands  the  breaking  of  the  ocean  dykes 
caused  terrific  floods,  in  which  over  400,000  people  were 
drowned. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  year  the  Comet  passed  over 
to  the  Southern  Hemisphere. 

(72) 


To  the  aborigines  of  South  America  it  proved  a  star 
of  dreadful  omen.  During  this  year  the  most  cruel  of 
Spanish  conquerors  did  their  bloodiest  work  in  the  New 
World — Cortez  in  Mexico,  Alvarado  at  the  Equator, 
and  Pizarro  in  Peru.  Before  the  Comet  disappeared 
from  view,  several  hundred  thousand  wretched  Incas  and 
Aztecs  had  been  slaughtered  by  the  Spaniards,  while 
many  more  hundred  thousands  were  worked  to  death 
as  slaves. 


1456 

T^HE  Comet  this  year  was  observed  throughout 
Europe  and  also  in  China.  It  came  into  view 
over  Europe  on  the  29th  of  May,  and  was  seen  gliding 
over  the  sky  towards  the  moon. 

Writers  of  that  period  say  that  it  shone  with  ^exceed- 
ing brightness  and  spread  out  a  fan-shaped  train  of  fire. 
The  Arab  astronomers  describe  its  shape  as  that  of  a 
Turkish  scimitar,  which,  blazing  against  the  dark  sky, 
was  regarded  as  a  sign  from  heaven  of  the  war  then 
raging  against  the  Christian  infidels. 

A  clear  story  of  the  Comet's  appearance  has  been  left 
by  the  Bavarian  Jesuit,  Brueckner  (Pontanus).  He 
based  his  story  on  the  record  of  Georgos  Phranza, 
Grandmaster  of  the  Wardrobes  to  the  Emperor  of  Con- 
stantinople. There  the  Comet  is  described  as  "rising  in 
the  West;  moving  towards  the  East,  and  approaching 
the  Moon." 

By  the  Chinese  this  Comet  was  described  as  having  a 
tail  sixty  degrees  long,  and  a  head  "which  at  one  time 
was  round,  and  the  size  of  a  bull's  eye,  the  tail  being  like 
a  peacock's." 

(73) 


Halley  wrote  of  this  Comet  in  1686:  "In  the  summer 
of  the  year  1456  a  Comet  was  seen,  which  passed  in  a 
retrograde  direction  between  the  earth  and  the  sun. 
From  its  period  and  path,  I  infer  that  it  was  the  same 
Comet  as  that  of  the  years  1531,  1607  and  1682.  1 
may  therefore  with  confidence  predict  its  return  in  the 
year  1758." 

The  appearance  of  the  Comet  in  1456  was  so  well 
remembered  even  225  years  later,  because  this  was  the 
scimitar-shaped  Comet  hailed  by  the  conquering  Turks 
as  their  guiding  star,  against  the  evil  influence  of  which 
Pope  Calixtus  III.  exhorted  all  Christians  to  pray  to 
God. 

This  story  has  been  denied  by  certain  latter-day  scep- 
tics, but  the  medieval  historian  Platina,  who  was  living 
in  Rome  at  the  time,  and  who  knew  whereof  he  spoke, 
wrote  in  his  "Lives  of  the  Popes"  in  1470: 

"A  hairy  and  fiery  star  having  then  made  its  appear- 
ance for  several  days,  the  mathematicians  declared  that 
there  would  follow  grievous  pestilence,  dearth  and  some 
great  calamity.  Calixtus,  to  avert  the  wrath  of  God, 
ordered  supplications  that  if  evils  wrere  impending  for 
the  human  race  He  would  turn  all  upon  the  Turks,  the 
enemies  of  the  Christian  name.  He  likewise  ordered, 
to  move  God  by  continual  entreaty,  that  notice  should 
be  given  by  the  bells  to  call  the  faithful  at  midday  to  aid 
by  their  prayers  those  engaged  in  battle  with  the  Turk." 

In  truth,  all  Christendom  appeared  indeed  to  have 
fallen  under  the  "wrath  of  God,"  for  the  Turks,  having 
wrested  Constantinople  away  from  the  Christians,  now 
came  ravaging  up  the  Danube  countries  and  laid  siege 
to  the  Christian  city  of  Belgrade.  Bloody  battles  were 
fought  between  the  Magyars  and  Turks  on  the  Danube, 

(74) 


until  Hunyadi,  the  great  Magyar  leader,  at  last  over- 
threw the  Turks  under  Mahomet  II. ,  under  the  walls  of 
Belgrade,  in  a  great  battle,  in  which  no  less  than  24,000 
Turks  were  slain.  This  was  on  July  2ist,  on  the  eve 
of  which  day  the  Comet  had  been  seen  to  blaze  at  its 
fiercest. 

1378 

^  I AHE  Comet  appeared  late  in  the  year,  and  was  seen 
at  its  brightest  over  Northern  Europe,  in  Scot- 
land, Scandinavia,  Russia  and  Poland. 

All  these  countries,  during  the  same  period  and  im- 
mediately afterwards,  were  cursed  by  the  terrible  pes- 
tilence called  the  "Black  Death,"  now  known  to  have 
been  the  worst  visitation  of  the  bubonic  plague  known 
in  history.  Wherever  the  dread  sickness  appeared,  the 
people  "died  like  rats."  So  many  succumbed  to  the  dis- 
ease, and  so  many  others  fled  aghast  from  the  pestilence, 
that  whole  cities  and  towns  were  left  empty,  and  no 
labourers  could  be  found  to  till  the  fields. 

1301 

HP  HE  Comet  this  year  was  first  observed  by  German 
and  Flemish  astrologers  during  the  late  Summer 
and  Autumn.  It  was  interpreted  as  an  ill  omen  of  the 
wars  which  then  ravaged  Europe.  Immediately  after  the 
appearance  of  the  Comet,  Emperor  Albrecht  of  Ger- 
many ravaged  the  Rhine  lands  with  fire  and  sword. 
Afterwards  the  German  astrologers  explained  the  Comet 
as  a  warning  omen  of  the  death  of  the  Emperor's  son 
Rudolf,  who  died  within  a  twelvemonth  of  his  coronation 
as  King  of  Bohemia. 

In  Flanders  the  Comet  was  taken  as  a  heavenly  token 
of  the  fierce  war  which  followed  the  blood-stained  mas- 

(75) 


sacre  of  3,000  French  soldiers  by  the  enraged  people  of 
Flanders. 

Soon  after  this  came  Robert  of  Artois'  bloody  defeat 
at  Coutrai,  the  famous  "Battle  of  the  Spurs,"  so  called 
from  the  thousands  of  gilt  spurs  that  were  taken  after- 
wards from  the  feet  of  the  slain  French  cavaliers. 

1222 

/T~AHE  Comet  during  this  year  is  recorded  by  the  Chi- 
nese astronomers  in  the  months  of  September  and 
October.  During  these  months,  and  immediately  after- 
wards, Jenghis  Khan,  the  bloody  Mongol  conqueror, 
with  his  fierce  Mongol  hordes,  was  ravaging  all  China, 
Persia,  India  and  the  Caucasus  country  as  far  as  the 
River  Don. 

The  Comet  was  taken  as  a  special  omen  of  the  ter- 
rible fate  of  the  City  of  Herat  and  its  surrounding  coun- 
try, where  the  bloodthirsty  conqueror  caused  to  be 
slaughtered  over  a  million  of  people.  Jenghis  Khan, 
who  believed  in  stars  and  omens,  having  been  born  with 
bloodstained  hands,  hailed  the  Comet  as  his  special 
Star.  Under  its  rays  he  extended  his  immense  Empire 
to  its  outermost  boundaries  from  the  China  seas  to 
the  banks  of  the  Dniepr  in  Russia.  After  the  Comet's 
disappearance,  Jenghis  Khan  regarded  the  planets  that 
had  crossed  its  orbit  as  stars  of  ill  omen,  betokening  his 
death,  so  he  set  his  face  backward  from  his  march  of 
conquest,  and  soon  afterwards  died  in  Mongolia. 

1145 

THE  Comet  appeared  over  Europe  early  in  Spring. 
It  was  seen  at  Rome  in  March  and  April. 
Inspired  by  the  appearance  of  the  Comet,  Pope  Eu- 
genius  III.  called  for  a  crusade  against  the  Moslems. 

(76) 


St.  Bernard  in  France  took  up  the  cry,  and  preached 
a  holy  war  all  over  France.  On  Easter  Sunday,  King 
Louis  VII.  of  France,  his  Queen  and  all  his  nobles, 
received  the  Cross  from  St.  Bernard  at  Vizelay. 

In  Rome,  however,  the  Comet  was  taken  as  a  token 
of  the  Pope's  downfall.  Arnold  of  Brescia  preached 
against  the  Pope  and  aroused  the  Roman  populace 
against  him.  The  Holy  Father  had  to  flee. 

On  the  disappearance  of  the  Comet,  the  Pope  returned 
and  excommunicated  the  Patricians  of  Rome.  Arnold 
of  Brescia  was  taken  and  strangled  in  his  cell.  Later 
historians,  like  Lubienitius,  accordingly  interpreted  the 
Comet  as  a  sign  of  warning  rather  than  as  an  ill  omen. 

1066 

>T^HIS  is  the  most  famous  appearance  of  the  Comet 
JL  now  known  as  Halley's  Comet.  Under  its  seven 
rays,  that  year,  William  the  Conqueror  felt  inspired  to 
fall  upon  England,  while  Harold,  the  Saxon,  on  the  other 
hand,  saw  in  the  Comet  a  star  of  dread  foreboding  and 
of  doom. 

The  medieval  chronicles  of  this  year  all  make  special 
mention  of  the  Comet.  A  picture  of  the  Comet,  as  it 
appeared  to  the  doomed  Harold,  was  embroidered  by 
Matilde  of  France,  on  the  famous  coloured  tapestry  of 
the  Norman  Conquest,  which  is  still  preserved  at 
Bayeux  in  Normandy. 

Zonares,  the  Greek  historian,  in  his  account  of  the 
death  of  Emperor  Constantinus  Ducas  (who  died  in 
May,  1067),  writes  of  the  Comet  as  "large  as  the  full 
moon,  and  at  first  without  a  tail,  on  the  appearance  of 
which  the  star  dwindled  in  size." 

The  Chinese  astronomers  have  recorded  that  this 
Comet  had  seven  tails,  and  was  seen  for  sixty-seven 

(77) 


days,  after  which  "the  star,  the  blaze,  and  the  star's 
tails  all  drew  away." 

The  Christian  chroniclers  record  that  this  Comet,  "in 
size  and  brightness  equalled  the  full  moon,  while  its  tail, 
slowly  lengthening  as  it  came  near  the  Sun,  spread  out 
into  seven  rays  and  arched  over  the  heavens  in  the  shape 
of  a  dragon's  tail." 

Sigebert  of  Brabant,  the  Belgian  chronicler  of  that 
time,  wrote  of  it:  "Over  the  island  of  Britain  was  seen 
a  star  of  a  wonderful  bigness,  to  the  train  of  which  hung 
a  fiery  sword  not  unlike  a  dragon's  tail;  and  out  of  the 
dragon's  mouth  issued  two  vast  rays,  whereof  one 
reached  as  far  as  France,  and  the  other,  divided  into 
seven  lesser  rays,  stretched  away  towards  Ireland." 

William  of  Malmesbury  wrote  how  the  apparition 
affected  the  mind  of  a  fellow  monk  of  his  monastery  in 
England.  His  words  were:  "Soon  after  the  death  of 
Henry,  King  of  France,  by  poison,  a  wonderful  star  ap- 
peared trailing  its  long  tail  over  the  sky.  Wherefore,  a 
certain  monk  of  our  monastery,  by  name  Elmir,  bowed 
down  with  terror  at  the  sight  of  the  strange  star,  wisely 
exclaimed,  Thou  art  come  back  at  last,  thou  that  will 
cause  so  many  mothers  to  weep;  many  years  have  I  seen 
thee  shine,  but  thou  seemest  to  me  more  terrible  now 
that  thou  foretellest  the  ruin  of  my  country.'  ' 

Another  old  Norman  chronicler,  by  way  of  defending 
the  divine  right  of  William  of  Normandy  to  invade 
England,  wrote:  "How  a  Starre  with  seven  long  Tayles 
appeared  in  the  Skye.  How  the  Learned  sayd  that 
newe  Starres  only  shewed  themselves  when  a  Kingdom 
wanted  a  King,  and  how  the  sayd  Starre  was  yclept  a 
Comette." 

William  himself  appealed  to  the  Comet  as  his  guid- 
ing star.  It  shone  at  its  brightest  during  the  Summer 

(79) 


months  while  William  was  preparing  his  expedition  at 
St.  Valery.  When  the  spirits  of  his  followers  failed 
them,  William  pointed  to  the  blazing  Comet  and  bid 
monks  and  priests  who  accompanied  his  expedition  to 
preach  stirring  sermons  on  the  "wonderful  Sign  from 
Heaven." 

The  trip  across  the  English  Channel,  late  in  Septem- 
ber, was  lighted  up  by  the  Comet,  and  under  its  lustre 
the  Norman  invaders  first  pitched  their  camp  at  Pev- 
ensey. 

Once  more,  when  William's  Norman  followers 
quailed  at  the  fierce  work  before  them,  William  pointed 
to  the  Comet  as  a  token  of  coming  victory. 

A  fortnight  later,  directly  after  the  disappearance 
of  the  Comet,  the  Battle  of  Hastings  was  fought,  in 
which  King  Harold  and  his  Saxon  thanes  lost  their  lives 
and  their  country. 

Afterwards,  when  Queen  Matilda  nnd  her  court  la- 
dies embroidered  the  pictorial  story  of  her  husband's 
Conquest  of  England  in  the  huge  tapestry  of  Bayeux, 
they  did  not  forget  the  Comet.  They  represented  Har- 
old cowering  in  alarm  on  his  throne,  whilst  his  people 
are  huddled  together,  pointing  with  their  fingers  at  the 
fearful  omen  in  the  sky,  the  birds  even  being  upset 
at  the  sight.  The  Latin  legend  over  the  picture  "Isti 
Mirant  Stella"  (they  marvel  at  the  star),  makes  it  all 
plain. 

As  I.  C.  Bruce,  the  editor  of  "The  Bayeux  Tapestry 
Elucidated,"  has  said:  "This  embroidery  is  remarkable 
for  furnishing  us  with  the  earliest  human  representation 
we  have  of  a  Comet." 

The  Comet  of  1066  will  ever  be  famous  for  ushering 
in  a  new  era  for  England.  Even  to-day  Halley's  Comet 
is  remembered  as  "The  Comet  of  the  Conquest." 

(so) 


WILLIAM    THE    CONQUEROR. 
(An    English    Dream.) 

Halley's     Comet     appeared     in      1066 — When     William     the     Conqueror     took 
E'ngland.     Halley's  Comet  is  here  to-day.— Kladderadatsch    (Berlin). 


989 

HP  HE  appearance  of  the  Comet  this  year  was  marked 

by  bloody  wars  all  over  Europe.     The  Lombards 

under  Otho  were  harrying  the  ancient  Roman  Empire, 

while  the  heathen  Danes  and  Wends  ravaged  Germany. 

912 

pHE  Comet  appeared  early  in  the  year  and  was  seen 
over  Germany,  as  noted  in  the  chronicles  of  the 
monks  of  St.  Callus  in  Switzerland.  Immediately  after 
the  appearance  of  the  Comet,  Germany  was  ravaged  by 
war,  both  inside  and  outside,  the  Empire  being  invaded 
on  all  sides  by  the  Danes  in  the  North,  the  Slavs  in  the 
Northeast,  and  the  Magyars  from  Hungary. 

837 

r  I AHE  Chinese  Astronomers  record  two  Comets  for 
this  year,  one  in  February,  and  the  other  in  April. 
But  the  modern  view  is  that  this  was  the  same  Comet,  as 
seen  going  to  the  Sun,  and  afterward,  when  it  was  com- 
ing away  from  the  Sun. 

Immediately  after  the  appearance  of  the  Comet  there 
followed  a  widespread  rebellion  in  China  with  much 
bloodshed  and  fierce  reprisals. 

The  only  Christian  record  of  the  Comet  we  have  is 
that  of  Eginard,  an  astrologer  employed  at  the  Court 
of  Louis  the  Debonair,  in  France.  This  is  Eginard's 
account  of  the  Comet:  "In  the  midst  of  the  holy  fes- 
tival of  Easter  there  shone  forth  in  our  sky  a  sign  al- 
ways ominous  and  of  sad  foreboding.  As  soon  as  the 
Emperor — who  was  in  the  habit  of  gazing  up  into  the 
sky  at  night — first  saw  the  Comet,  he  had  me  called  be- 

(82) 


fore  him,  together  with  another  learned  star  gazer.  As 
soon  as  I  came  before  him  he  asked  me  what  i  thought 
of  the  sign  in  heaven. 

"  'Let  me  have  but  a  little  time,'  I  asked  of  him,  'that 
I  may  study  this  sign  and  see  the  exact  constellation  of 
the  other  stars  around  it,  thus  to  gather  from  the  stars 
the  true  meaning  of  this  portent,'  promising  him  that 
I  would  tell  him  on  the  morrow  of  the  results  of  my 
studies. 

"But  the  Emperor,  guessing  that  I  was  trying  to 
gain  time — as  was  indeed  the  truth,  lest  I  be  driven  to 
tell  him  something  unlucky  and  fatal  to  him — he  said 
to  me: 

"  'Go  up  on  the  terrace  of  the  palace  and  look.  Then 
come  back  at  once  and  tell  me  what  thou  hast  seen! 
For  I  did  not  see  this  star  last  night;  nor  didst  thou 
point  it  out  to  me;  but  I  know  that  sign  in  heaven  is  a 
Comet.  Thou  must  tell  me  true  what  it  forebodes  to 
me!' 

"Then,  before  I  could  say  anything,  he  said:  'There 
is  another  thing  thou  art  hiding  from  me.  It  is  that 
changes  in  Kingdoms  and  the  deaths  of  rulers  are  fore- 
told by  this  sign.' 

"To  soothe  him  I  reminded  the  Emperor  of  the 
words  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah,  who  said:  'Fear  not  signs 
in  the  Heaven,  like  unto  the  Heathen.' 

"But  the  Emperor  smiled  sadly  and  said:  'We  should 
believe  only  in  God  on  High,  who  has  created  us  and 
also  all  Stars  in  Heaven.  Since  He  has  sent  this  Star, 
and  since  this  unlocked  for  Sign  may  be  meant  for  us, 
let  us  look  upon  it  as  a  warning  from  Heaven.'  ' 

Thereupon  Louis  the  Debonair  betook  himself  to 
fasting,  prayers,  and  the  building  of  churches  and 
shrines,  he  and  all  his  Court.  Shortly  thereafter  he 
died. 

(83) 


The  French  chronicler,  Raoul  Glaber,  afterward 
wrote  in  his  chronicle:  "Comets  never  show  themselves 
to  man  without  foreboding  surely  some  coming  event, 
marvellous  or-  terrible." 


760 

A  Comet  appeared  in  the  Spring  of  this  year,  which 
•*•  *•  without  any  doubt  whatever  was  Halley's.  It  was 
recorded  in  detail  both  by  European  and  Chinese  an- 
nalists, and  its  orbit  has  been  calculated  and  identified  by 
Laugier. 

A  Greek  record  of  Constantinople  tells  how  "a 
Comet  like  a  great  beam  and  very  brilliant  was  observed 
in  the  twentieth  year  of  Emperor  Constantine  V.,  sur- 
named  Copronymus,  first  in  the  East  and  then  in  the 
West,  for  about  thirty  days.  Its  appearance  was  fol- 
lowed next  Winter  by  a  biting  frost  throughout  the 
Orient,  which  endured  150  days,  from  October  until 
February,  blighting  all  crops  in  Egypt  and  elsewhere 
in  the  Eastern  Empire. 


684 

HINESE  annals  record  a  Comet  observed  in  the 
West  in  September  and  October.  This  accords 
with  the  computed  time  for  the  course  of  Halley's  Comet 
that  year.  Immediately  after  the  Comet's  appearance, 
China  and  the  Far  East  were  ravaged  by  the  black 
plague.  Millions  died  of  it.  Baeda  the  Venerable,  in 
his  "Chronicle  of  the  English  People,"  records  that  the 
plague  also  reached  England. 

(84) 


607 

A  LL  Europe  and  the  former  Roman  Empire  were  in 
•*"  *•  such  dire  confusion  during  this  period  that  no 
records  of  this  year,  either  astronomic  or  historical,  have 
come  down  to  us.  Messrs.  Cowell  and  Crommelin,  how- 
ever, have  computed  astronomically  that  the  Comet  must 
have  appeared  during  this  year.  All  we  know  is  that 
Italy  and  the  Latin  World  were  overrun  by  ravaging 
Slavonian  hordes  from  Hungary,  who  made  all  the 
country  run  with  blood. 

530 

OF  THE  Comet  this  year,  likewise,  there  is  no  astro- 
nomic record.  All  we  know  is  that  the  appear- 
ance of  a  Comet  is  noted  in  European  chronicles.  It 
was  followed  by  a  virulent  outbreak  of  the  black  plague. 
In  the  legendary  history  of  Merlin,  the  ancient  Brit- 
ish seer,  it  is  stated  that  on  the  appearance  of  a  Comet 
this  year  he  prophesied  that  Uter,  brother  of  Ambrosius, 
on  the  death  of  the  latter,  should  rule  the  kingdom; 
that  a  ray  from  the  Comet  which  pointed  toward  Gaul 
presaged  a  son  who  should  be  born  to  him  and  who 
should  be  great  in  power;  and  that  the  ray  "that  goes 
toward  Ireland  represents  a  daughter,  of  whom  thou 
shalt  be  the  father,  and  her  sons  and  grandsons  shall 
reign  over  all  the  Britons."  These  prophecies  all  came 
true. 

451 

THE  Comet  which  appeared  over  Europe  this  year 
has  been  proven  by  Laugier  to  have  been  Hal- 
ley's  Comet. 

It  was  seen  in  France  just  before  the  monster  battle 

(85) 


on  the  Catalaunian  Fields  (Chalons-sur-Marne),  when 
Aetius,  the  last  of  the  Romans,  together  with  King 
Theoderic  and  his  Goths,  stemmed  the  tide  of  Hunnish 
invasion  led  by  Attila,  the  "Scourge  of  God." 

Theoderic,  together  with  148,000  warriors  on  both 
sides,  were  slain  in  this  tremendous  fight,  which  alone 
saved  Europe  from  Tartar  savagery. 

373 

HINESE  annals  of  this  year  record  a  Comet  seen 
in  the  northern  constellation  of  Ophiuchus  in  Oc- 
tober. This  year  marks  the  beginning  of  the  tremen- 
dous migration  of  peoples,  which  started  in  Mongolia 
and  Tartary,  and  crossing  the  Volga  gradually  over- 
flowed all  the  known  world,  like  a  huge  human  deluge. 

295 

appearance  of  a  Comet  this  year  (identified  by 
Hind  with  Halley's)  was  followed  by  a  bloody  re- 
bellion of  the  ancient  Britains  against  the  Romans,  and 
by  another  rebellion  against  Rome  by  the  Egyptians. 
These  patriotic  uprisings  of  the  people  were  suppressed 
with  fire  and  sword  and  both  countries  ran  with  blood. 

218 

r  I  ^HE  Chinese  catalogue  of  Ma-tuan-lin  records  a 
Comet  with  a  path  exactly  analogous  with  the 
orbit  of  Halley's  Comet  computed  for  that  year  by  Hind. 
In  the  Chinese  record  the  Comet  is  described  as  "pointed 
and  bright."  Its  coming  was  connected  with  the  death 
of  Emperor  Ween-te  directly  afterward,  and  the  Civil 
Wars  between  various  claimants  to  the  throne  of  the 
Celestial  Empire,  which  then  rent  China  asunder. 

(86) 


Dion  Cassius,  the  Roman  historian,  describes  the 
Comet  of  this  year  as  "a  very  fearful  star  with  a^ tail 
stretching  from  the  West  towards  the  East." 

The  Roman  augurs  explained  the  Comet  as  a  portent 
of  the  bloody  death  of  Emperor  Macrinus  of  Rome,  who 
was  murdered  by  his  own  soldiers  on  the  night  after  the 
disappearance  of  the  Comet. 

141 

TN  THIS  year  the  Chinese  astronomers  recorded  a 
Comet  in  March  and  April  (the  time  computed  for 
Halley's  Comet),  which  they  described  as  "a  star  six  or 
seven  cubits  long  and  of  a  bluish-white  colour."  The 
coming  of  the  Comet  was  followed  by  a  virulent  out- 
break of  the  plague  in  China  and  the  Far  East,  which 
spread  all  over  the  known  world.  So  virulent  was  this 
pestilence  that  in  the  City  of  Naples  alone  400,000  peo- 
ple died  of  the  disease. 

65-66  •"•'. 

TJ  ALLEY'S  Comet,  according  to  astronomic  calcula- 
tions, must  have  made  its  reappearance  during  the 
winter  months  of  65-66  A.  D.  The  Chinese  have  re- 
corded "two  Comets,"  one  in  65,  which  was  seen  for 
fifty-six  days,  and  "the  other"  in  February,  66,  which 
remained  visible  fifty  days. 

This  was  the  Comet  which  St.  Peter  and  Josephus 
saw  over  the  City  of  Jerusalem,  before  the  fall  of  the 
Holy  City.  Josephus  wrote  of  it  :  "Amongst  other 
warnings,  a  Comet,  of  the  kind  called  Xiphias,  because 
their  tails  appear  to  represent  the  blade  of  a  sword,  was 
seen  above  the  doomed  city  for  the  space  of  nearly  a 
whole  year. 

(87) 


Jerusalem  was  ravaged  by  pestilence  and  famine  and 
soon  afterward  was  stormed  by  the  Roman  soldiery  led 
by  Titus.  The  Temple  was  burned  down  and  the  streets 
of  the  Holy  City  ran  with  blood.  It  was  the  end  of 
Jerusalem  and  of  the  Jews  as  a  free  city  and  people. 

B.  C.  1 1 

HP  HIS  is  the  farthest  back  that  the  appearances  of 
Halley's  Comet  have  been  traced  in  history.  For 
earlier  appearances  there  are  no  sufficiently  trustworthy 
computations  or  records. 

Dion  Cassius  in  his  "History  of  Rome"  has  recorded 
ua  Comet  which  hung  suspended  over  the  City  of  Rome 
just  before  the  death  of  Agrippa,"  who  ruled  over  the 
Roman  Empire  during  the  absence  of  Augustus  in 
Greece  and  Asia.  Agrippa  was  so  universally  beloved, 
and  his  death  was  held  to  be  such  a  loss  to  Rome  that  he 
was  buried  with  imperial  honours  in  the  tomb  intended 
for  Augustus. 

The  death  of  Agrippa  occurred  in  the  year  12, 
shortly  after  the  disappearance  of  the  Comet  which 
Hind  has  identified  with  Halley's. 


T^HIS  completes  the  record  of  all  the  known  appear- 
ances of  Halley's  Comet.  The  record  fully  justi- 
fies Chambers'  dictum,  that  the  "Comet  known  as  Hal- 
ley's  is  by  far  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  Comets  re- 
corded in  history." 

This  historic  record  also  appears  to  justify  in  no 
small  measure  the  popular  beliefs  of  the  last  two  thou- 
sand years  concerning  Comets,  as  expressed  by  Leonard 
Digges  in  his  book  on  Prognostics,  published  350  years 
ago: 

(88) 


"Cometes  signifie  corruption  of  the  ayre.  They  are 
signs  of  earthquakes,  of  warres,  of  changying  of  Kyng- 
domes,  great  dearth  of  food,  yea  a  common  death  of 
man  and  beast  from  pestilence." 


(89) 


THE  STORY  OF  EDMUND  HALLEY 


T^HE  great  French  astronomer  Lalande  considered 
Halley  the  greatest  astronomer  of  his  time.  This 
opinion  is  still  held.  Halley's  "time"  means  the  age  of 
Kepler,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Flamsteed,  Hevelius,  and 
Leibnitz,  all  of  whom  achieved  first  rank  in  Astronomy. 

Halley's  greatest  achievement  in  Astronomy  was  the 
discovery  that  our  solar  system  was  but  an  atom  in 
immeasurable  space  whence  wandering  stars  could  be 
caught  within  the  influence  of  our  Sun,  our  Earth  and 
the  other  Planets  swinging  around  our  Sun. 

Halley  was  the  first  to  discover  and  to  prove  that  the 
Comets  that  come  within  the  vision  of  man  have  fixed 
periods  of  return.  He  made  this  discovery  during  the 
appearance  of  the  great  Comet  of  1682,  which  has  since 
been  known  by  his  name. 

In  his  studies  of  the  motions  of  Comets,  of  which 
Halley  computed  the  orbits  of  twenty-four,  he  observed 
that  a  Comet  of  similar  phenomena,  recorded  by  Appian 
in  1531  and  by  Kepler  in  1607,  had  swung  through  the 
same  orbit  as  the  Comet  under  his  observation  in  1682. 
Halley  surmised  from  this  that  these  Comets  might  be 
one  and  the  same,  whose  intervals  of  return  appeared  to 
cover  a  period  of  seventy-five  or  seventy-six  years.  Hal- 
ley's  surmise  seemed  to  be  confirmed  by  the  recorded  ap- 
pearance of  similar  bright  Comets  in  the  years  1456, 
1378,  and  1301,  the  intervals  again  being  seventy-five 
or  seventy-six  years. 

Halley  was  deeply  imbued  with  Newton's  new  dis- 
covery of  gravitation,  for  the  publication  of  which  Hal- 
ley  paid  the  expenses,  so  he  brought  the  principles  of 

(90) 


Newton's  theory  of  gravitation  to  bear  on  his  own  new 
theory  of  the  motions  of  Comets.  He  rightly  conjec- 
tured that  Comets  were  drawn  to  our  Sun  across  the  dis- 
turbing orbits  of  our  planetary  system,  and  that  the  com- 
paratively small  differences  of  one  or  two  years  in  the 
recorded  intervals  of  this  one  Comet  (Halley's  Comet) 
were  due  to  the  attraction  of  the  larger  planets. 

During  the  previous  year,  1681,  Halley  computed 
that  the  Comet  had  passed  near  the  planet  Jupiter,  the 
attraction  of  which  must  have  had  a  considerable  influ- 
ence on  the  Comet's  motion.  Making  due  allowance  for 
this  disturbing  influence  of  Jupiter,  he  computed  that 
the  Comet  would  return  to  the  vicinity  of  our  Sun  about 
the  end  of  1758  or  beginning  of  1759. 

Halley  did  not  live  to  see  his  prediction  fulfilled  (he 
died  in  1742),  but  he  wrote  shortly  before  he  died:  "If 
this  Comet  should  return  according  to  our  predictions 
about  the  year  1758,  impartial  posterity  will"  not  refuse 
to  acknowledge  that  this  was  first  discovered  by  an  Eng- 
lishman." 

All  through  the  year  1758  the  most  noted  astronomers 
of  Europe  were  on  the  lookout  for  the  return  of  the  pre- 
dicted Comet.  One  of  these  astronomers,  Messier, 
looked  for  it  through  his  telescope  at  the  Paris  Observa- 
tory every  night  from  sunset  to  sunrise  throughout  that 
whole  year.  On  Christmas  night,  1758,  the  Comet  was 
first  seen  by  a  German  peasant  near  Dresden,  who  had 
heard  about  the  Comet  and  was  looking  for  it.  He  was 
a  man  of  unusually  good  eyesight,  yet  his  discovery  was 
doubted  until  Messier,  nearly  a  month  afterward,  at 
Paris,  "picked  up"  the  Comet  with  his  telescope. 

From  that  time  forth  this  Comet,  which  returned  in 
1835,  and  is  reappearing  in  this  year  (1910),  has  been 
known  as  Halley's  Comet. 


EDMUND   HALLEY. 


Besides  this  achievement,  Halley  accomplished  many 
other  noteworthy  feats  in  astronomy,  such  as  his  dis- 
covery of  the  proper  motions  of  the  fixed  stars;  his  de- 
tection of  the  "long  inequality"  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn, 
and  of  the  acceleration  of  the  moon's  mean  motion;  his 
theory  of  variation,  including  the  hypothesis  of  various 
magnetic  poles,  with  his  suggestion  of  the  magnetic 
origin  of  the  aurora  borealis;  and  his  indication  of  a 
method  still  used  for  determining  the  solar  parallax  by 
means  of  the  transits  of  Venus. 

On  the  strength  of  these  achievements,  Halley  for 
many  years  was  elected  to  serve  as  secretary  to  the  Royal 
Society.  Commissioned  as  a  Captain  in  the  Royal  Navy, 
he  also  commanded  a  vessel  on  a  long  cruise  of  explora- 
tion, and  late  in  life  he  was  made  Astronomer  Royal. 

Although  in  his  sixty-fourth  year,  he  then  undertook 
to  observe  the  moon  through  an  entire  revolution  of  her 
nodes  (eighteen  years),  and  actually  carried  out  his  pur- 
pose. To  appreciate  the  full  significance  of  so  pains- 
taking an  achievement  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
astronomical  observations  must  be  made  in  a  tempera- 
ture equal  to  that  of  the  open  air.  Observatories  cannot 
be  heated  because  the  heat  would  impair  the  accuracy  of 
the  instruments. 

Great  astronomers,  like  poets,  are  born,  not  made. 
Edmund  Halley  was  one  of  these.  At  the  age  of  seven- 
teen he  had  already  observed  the  change  in  the  varia- 
tions of  the  compass.  At  nineteen  he  was  recognized  as 
an  astronomer  of  reputation,  having  supplied  a  new  and 
improved  method  of  determining  the  elements  of  the 
planetary  orbits.  His  detection  of  considerable  errors  in 
the  tables  then  in  use  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  a 
more  accurate  determination  of  the  places  of  the  fixed 
Stars  was  indispensable  to  the  progress  of  astronomy. 

(93) 


With  this  end  in  view  he  set  out  on  a  voyage  to  the  other 
side  of  the  globe,  St.  Helena,  where  he  undertook  the 
task  of  making  complete  new  observations  of  the  entire 
Southern  Hemisphere.  Though  the  Heavens  proved 
clouded  he  succeeded  within  two  years  in  registering 
three  hundred  and  sixty  stars,  a  colossal  achievement 
which  won  for  him  the  title  of  the  "Southern  Tycho." 
This  was  when  Halley  was  barely  of  age. 

(The  famous  astronomer  Tycho  Brahe,  long  before 
this  had  won  his  fame  by  mapping  the  stars  of  the 
Northern  Heavens.) 

No  one  could  well  have  begun  with  prospects  more  re- 
mote from  so  high  a  career,  for  Edmund  Halley  was 
born  in  1656,  the  son  of  a  soap  boiler  in  a  shabby  Lon- 
don suburb.  From  the  refuse  of  rancid  fat  and  lye  the 
boy  was  rescued  by  friends,  who  procured  for  him  a 
scholarship  at  Saint  Paul's  school.  By  his  brilliant  at- 
tainments in  mathematics  he  won  another  scholarship  to 
Oxford  University. 

While  at  Oxford  the  youth  published  a  treatise  on  the 
planetary  orbits  and  argued  the  Sun's  axial  rotation. 

On  his  graduation  from  Oxford,  the  young  would-be 
astronomer  conceived  the  project  of  turning  his  at- 
tention to  the  southern  Stars,  of  which  no  good  observa- 
tions had  been  made.  Shortly  before  this  time  a  Dutch 
astronomer,  named  Houtman,  had  observed  these  Stars 
in  the  island  of  Sumatra;  and  Blaeu,  the  best  globe  maker 
of  the  age,  had  used  these  new  observations  in  the  cor- 
rection of  his  celestial  globes.  Halley,  on  examining 
these  corrections,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  himself 
could  do  better.  He  also  concluded  that  the  Island  of 
St.  Helena  might  be  a  better  point  for  southern  obser- 
vations. His  father,  unable  to  pay  the  expenses  of  so 
long  a  trip,  broached  the  project  to  some  friends.  The 

(94) 


young  astronomer  was  recommended  to  King  Charles  II. 
by  Williamson  and  Jones  Moore,  and  the  King  in  turn 
recommended  the  youth  to  the  Indian  Company,  which 
then  had  control  over  the  island  of  St.  Helena. 

After  this  all  was  plain  sailing.  The  India  Company 
placed  a  ship  at  his  disposition  and  promised  him  all  the 
assistance  he  required.  Young  Halley  provided  himself 
with  telescopes,  and  micrometers,  and  other  instruments 
of  the  latest  approved  pattern.  In  November,  1666,  at 
the  age  of  twenty,  he  sailed  for  St.  Helena.  Among  his 
luggage  was  a  sextant  of  five  and  a  half  feet  and  a  tele- 
scope twenty-four  feet  in  length  constructed  under  the 
supervision  of  Flamsteed,  the  Astronomer  Royal. 

Halley  was  disappointed  in  the  climate  of  St.  Helena. 
Frequent  rains  and  a  constantly  hazy  sky  scarcely  per- 
mitted any  observations  in  the  months  of  August  and 
September.  Notwithstanding  these  difficulties,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  observing  and  cataloguing  some  360  Stars. 

In  addition  to  his  work  on  the  Stars,  Halley  made 
some  investigations  on  the  Moon's  parallax,  combining 
his  observations  at  St.  Helena  with  those  made  in  north- 
ern skies.  He  also  evolved  a  new  theory  of  the  Moon's 
motion,  which  proved  of  great  aid  in  the  determination 
of  longitudes. 

On  November  7,  1677,  Halley  observed  a  transit  of 
Mercury  which  suggested  to  him  the  important  idea  of 
employing  similar  phenomena  for  the  calculation  of  the 
Sun's  distance. 

Halley  returned  to  England  in  November,  1678,  and 
was  hailed  by  his  fellow  astronomers  as  the  "South- 
ern Tycho."  He  was  elected  a  fellow  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety, and  by  the  King's  command  the  degree  of  Master 
of  Arts  was  conferred  upon  him  by  the  University  of 
Oxford. 

(95) 


Six  months  later  Halley  set  out  for  Dantsic  for  a 
personal  conference  with  Hevelius,  the  Polish  astron- 
omer. Halley  wanted  to  satisfy  himself  as  to  the  ac- 
curacy of  observations  claimed  by  Hevelius  without  the 
aid  of  a  telescope.  Halley  convinced  himself  that  the 
errors  of  the  observations  made  by  Hevelius  were  less 
than  had  been  supposed,  and  did  not  exceed  a  minute  of 
an  arc.  The  two  became  life-long  friends.  Halley  pro- 
ceeded to  other  cities  of  Europe  where  there  were  ob- 
servatories. In  Paris  he  observed  with  Cassini  the  great 
Comet  of  1680.  This  was  the  beginning  of  Halley's 
special  study  of  Comets. 

Returning  to  England,  the  young  astronomer  mar- 
ried the  daughter  of  Mr.  Tooke,  auditor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, with  whom  he  lived  harmoniously  until  her 
death,  fifty-five  years  later.  The  young  couple  settled 
at  Islington,  where  Halley  erected  an  observatory  of  his 
own  and  engaged  in  constant  lunar  observations  with  a 
view  toward  finding  a  method  for  computing  longitudes 
at  sea. 

Halley's  mind  at  the  same  time  was  busy  with  the 
momentous  problem  of  gravity,  upon  which  Isaac  New- 
ton was  working  then.  Independently  of  Newton,  Halley 
reached  the  conclusion  that  the  central  force  of  the  Solar 
System  must  decrease  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  dis- 
tance. Having  applied  vainly  to  his  fellow  astronomers, 
Hooke  and  Wren,  Halley  in  August,  1684,  made  a  spe- 
cial journey  to  Cambridge  to  consult  Isaac  Newton,  who 
confirmed  his  conjectures. 

Halley  and  Newton  became  life-long  friends.  Halley 
had  Newton  elected  to  the  Royal  Society,  and  when 
Newton  became  too  poor  to  pay  his  quarterly  dues, 
Halley,  through  his  influence  with  the  leading  members 
of  the  Society,  had  them  remitted.  It  was  Halley  who 

(96) 


encouraged  Newton  to  put  his  momentous  discovery  and 
elucidation  of  the  forces  of  gravity  into  permanent  form 
in  his  "Principia,"  the  first  volume  of  which,  "De 
Motu,"  was  presented  to  the  Royal  Society  at  Halley's 
suggestion. 

In  the  proceedings  of  the  Royal  Society  for  Decem- 
ber, 1684,  there  is  an  entry  that  "Mr.  Halley  had  lately 
seen  Mr.  Newton  at  Cambridge,  who  had  told  him  of  a 
curious  treatise  'De  Motu,'  which  at  Mr.  Halley's  de- 
sire he  promised  to  send  to  the  Society  to  be  entered 
upon  their  register.  Mr.  Halley  was  desired  to  put  Mr. 
Newton  in  mind  of  his  promise  for  the  securing  this  in- 
vention to  himself,  till  such  time  as  he  could  be  at  leisure 
to  publish  it." 

Early  in  the  following  year  Newton  sent  his  treatise 
to  the  Society,  to  whom  it  was  read  aloud  by  Halley. 
This  treatise  "De  Motu"  was  the  germ  of  the  "Prin- 
cipia"  and  was  intended  to  be  a  short  account  of  what 
the  greater  work  was  to  embrace. 

During  the  next  two  years  Newton  was  hard  at 
work  on  his  "Principia,"  while  Halley  was  equally  hard 
at  work  on  his  computations  of  the  Comet  of  1682,  and 
on  his  theory  of  the  orbits  and  the  periodical  returns  of 
Comets  which  grew  out  of  his  observations. 

On  April  21,  1686,  Halley  read  to  the  Royal  So- 
ciety his  own  "Discourse  Concerning  Gravity  and  its 
Properties,"  in  which  he  stated  that  his  "worthy  country- 
man, Mr.  Issac  Newton,  has  an  incomparable  treatise 
on  Motion  almost  ready  for  the  press,"  and  that  the  law 
of  the  inverse  square  "is  the  principle  on  which  Mr. 
Newton  has  made  out  all  the  phenomena  of  the  celestial 
motions  so  easily  and  naturally  that  its  truth  is  past 
dispute." 

Shortly    afterward    Newton    sent    in    the    manuscript 

(97) 


of  his  great  work.  The  Society  voted  "that  a  letter  of 
thanks  be  written  to  Mr.  Newton  and  that  the  printing 
of  his  book  be  referred  to  the  consideration  of  the  coun- 
cil and  that  in  the  meantime  the  book  be  put  into  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Halley." 

The  truth  was  that  the  Royal  Society,  at  that  time, 
did  not  have  money  enough  to  print  the  book.  The 
Society  went  through  the  empty  form  of  "ordering"  that 
the  book  be  printed  "forthwith,"  but  no  printer  was  forth- 
coming until  Halley  himself  undertook  the  publication  of 
the  great  work  at  his  own  expense. 

The  delicacy  of  Halley's  feeling  is  revealed  by  his 
correspondence  with  Newton,  in  which  he  informed 
Newton  that  the  book  had  "been  ordered  to  be  printed 
at  the  Society's  charge."  The  preliminary  delay  about 
printing  he  explained  to  Newton  "arose  from  the  Presi- 
dent's attedence  on  the  King,  and  the  absence  of  the 
vice-presidents,  whom  the  good  weather  had  drawn  out 
of  town." 

Later  Newton  came  to  realize  how  much  he  owed 
to  Halley  in  this  matter.  In  his  letters  to  Halley  hence- 
forth he  always  refered  to  his  book  as  if  it  had  been 
Halley's  book.  When  the  great  work  was  finished  at 
last  Newton  wrote  to  Halley  under  the  date  of  July  5, 
1687:  "I  have  at  length  brought  your  book  to  an  end, 
and  hope  it  will  please  you." 

The  finished  work  contained  a  note  to  this  effect : 
"The  inverse  law  of  gravity  holds  in  all  the  celestial 
motions,  as  was  discovered  also  independently  by  my 
countrymen  Wren,  Hooke,  and  Halley." 

The  book  was  dedicated  to  the  Royal  Society,  and 
to  it  was  prefixed  a  set  of  Latin  hexameters  addressed 
by  Halley  to  the  author,  ending  with  the  well  known 
Fine: 

(98) 


uNec  fac  est  propius  mortali  attingere  divos." 
("It  is  not  given  to  a  mortal  to  get  in  closer  touch  with 
the  gods.") 

Halley  was  fifty  years  old  when  he  made  his  famous 

\prediction  of  the  return  of  the  Comet  of  1682.     This 

j  was  in  his  "Synopsis  of  Comet  Astronomy,"  which  ended 

with  these  words :  "Hence  I  may  venture  to  foretell  that 

ithis  Comet  will  return  again  in  the  year  1758." 

Besides  being  an  astronomer  of  the  first  class, 
Halley  was  also  a  good  navigator.  In  1698  he  was  com- 
missioned a  captain  in  the  Royal  Navy  and  was  put  in 
command  of  the  King's  ship,  "The  Paramour  Pink." 
With  this  vessel  he  set  out  on  a  long  cruise  to  the  Pacific 
for  the  purpose  of  making  observations  on  the  laws 
which  govern  magnetic  variations.  This  task  he  ac- 
complished in  a  voyage  which  lasted  two  years  and  ex- 
tended to  the  fifty-second  degree  of  southern  latitude, 
when  the  ice  compelled  him  to  turn  back.  On  the  re- 
turn voyage  his  crew  mutinied  and  his  lieutenant  sided 
with  the  mutineers.  Halley  quelled  the  mutiny  by  sheer 
force  of  personality,  and  returning  to  England  got  rid 
of  his  lieutenant.  The  results  of  his  voyage  were  pub- 
lished in  his  "General  Chart  of  the  Variation  of  the 
Compass"  in  1701.  Immediately  afterwards  Halley  set 
out  on  another  King's  ship  and  executed  by  royal  com- 
mand a  careful  survey  of  the  tides  and  coasts  of  the 
British  Channel,  an  elaborate  chart  of  which  he  pub- 
lished in  1702. 

Next  Halley  was  sent  by  the  King  to  Dalmatia,  for 
the  purpose  of  selecting  and  fortifying  the  port  of 
Trieste. 

On  Halley's  return  to  England,  he  was  made 
Savilian  professor  of  geometry  at  Oxford,  and  received 
an  honorary  doctor's  degree.  He  filled  two  terms  of 

(99) 


eight  years  each  as  secretary  to  the  Royal  Society,  and 
early  in   1720  he   succeeded   Flamsteed  as  Astronomer 

Royal. 

He  died  on  January  14,  1742,  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
five  in  the  full  possession  of  his  faculties,  the  foremost 
astronomer  of  the  day  and  a  man  universally  beloved 
and  respected.  His  gravestone  stands  at  the  Green- 
wich Observatory. 

Halley's  works  fill  several  shelves  in  the  library  of 
the  Royal  Society.  His  fame  is  kept  green  by  the  peri- 
odical return  of  the  wandering  star  known  by  his  name. 


(100) 


WHAT  ARE  COMETS? 

T^HE  modern  answer  to  the  question  "What  are 
Comets  made  of?"  is  this: 

Probably  the  heads  are  a  mixture  of  solid  and  gaseous 
matter.  The  tails  are  gaseous — the  result  of  the  vola- 
tilisation of  the  solid  matter  of  the  heads. 

The  spectroscope  shows  that  gases  appear  to  be  a 
constituent  of  all  Comets.  The  spectra  of  Comets  are 
very  similar  to  those  of  a  Bunsen  flame.  Recent  spectro- 
scopic  photographs  have  revealed  the  presence  of  hydro- 
carbons, nitro-carbons,  of  cyanogen  and  of  the  vapours 
of  sodium,  TforT  and  other  metals. 

The  connection  between  Comets  and  Meteors  implies 
the  presence  in  Comets  of  solid  matter.  A  modern 
theory,  voiced  by  Schiaparelli,  is  that  meteor  showers  are 
broken  up  Comets. 

The  tails  of  Comets  appear  to  be  composed  of  lumin- 
ous gases  ejected  from  the  head  of  the  Comet  through 
a  solar  force  held  to  be  "Light  Pressure,"  which  causes 
these  tails  to  shoot  off  and  disperse  into  space  at  the  rate 
of  865,000  miles  an  hour. 

The  length  of  some  Comets'  tails  has  been  estimated 
at  125,000,000  miles,  while  the  Comets'  heads  them- 
selves are  generally  much  larger  in  size  than  our  Earth. 
Halley's  Comet,  is  more  than  ten-fold  the  size  of  our 
Earth. 

E.  W.  Maunder,  of  the  Royal  Observatory  of  Green- 
wich, a  modern  astronomer,  has  thus  summarized  the 
latest  theories  of  the  substance  of  Comets : 

"Though  the  bulk  of  comets  is  huge,  they  contain  ex- 
traordinarily little  substance.  Their  heads  must  con- 

(101) 


tain  some  solid  matter,  but  it  is  probably  in  the  form  of 
a  loose  aggregation  of  stones  enveloped  in  vaporous 
material.  There  is  some  reason  to  suppose  that  Comets 
are  apt  to  shed  some  of  these  stones  as  they  travel  along 
their  paths,  for  the  orbits  of  the  meteors  that  cause  some 
of  our  greatest  'star  showers'  are  coincident  with  the 
paths  of  Comets  that  have  been  observed.  But  it  is  not 
only  by  shedding  its  loose  stones  that  a  Comet  diminishes 
its  bulk;  it  loses  also  through  its  tail.  As  the  Comet 
gets  close  to  the  Sun  its  head  becomes  heated,  and  throws 
off  concentric  envelopes,  much  of  which  consists  of  mat- 
ter in  an  extremely  fine  station  of  division : 

The  orbits  of  Comets  visible  to  human  eyes  are  all 
governed  by  the  Sun.  In  the  words  of  C.  L.  Toor: 
"The  attraction  of  the  Sun  is  to  the  Comet  like  the  flame 
to  the  moth.  The  Comet  flutters  for  a  moment  about 
the  Sun,  and  then  swings  back  into  outward  space.  But 
not  unscathed ;  like  the  moth,  the  Comet  has  been  singed. 
The  fierce  light  of  the  Sun  has  beaten  upon  it,  and  spread 
out  its  particles  and  scattered  them  along  its  path." 

As  a  comet  swings  toward  and  away  from  the  Sun,  it 
travels  at  a  tremendous  rate  of  N^geeq-— over  a  million 
miles  an  hour.  The-jdislance  covered  rrom  one  end  ot 
the  orbit  to  the  other  is  3,370,000,000  miles. 

The  great  majority  of  Comets  appear  to  travel  in 
parabolas,  open  curves  leading  from  infinite  space  to  and 
around  the  Sun,  and  thence  back  into  infinite  space  to 
some  other  fixed  star  invisible  to  us.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  though,  the  parabolic  curves  of  Comets'  orbits 
through  the  gravitational  attraction  of  the  planets,  whose 
orbits  are  crossed  by  it,  may  be  changed  into  hyperbolic 
curves  and  ellipses  by  planetary  perturbations.  Hence 
the  differences  in  time  between  the  returns  of  certain 
Comets,  like  Halley's,  for  instance. 

(102) 


RELATIVE1  SIZES  OF  THE  EARTH, 

THE   MOON'S   ORBIT   AND 

HALLEY'S   COMET. 


ORBIT      OF      HALLEY'S      COMET. 

THE   TAIL  ALWAYS   POINTS 

AWAY  FROM  THE  SUN. 


In  a  general  way,  it  may  be  said  that  every  Comet 
comprises  a  nucleus,  an  envelope  (called  the  "coma") 
surrounding  the  nucleus  and  measuring  from  20,000  to 
i->ooo,ooo  miles  in  diameter,  and  a  long  tail  which 
streams  behind  the  nucleus  from  sixty  to  a  hundred  mil- 
lion miles  or  more. 

Astronomers  have  decided  that  the  nucleus  is  probably 
a  heap  of  meteorites  varying  in  size  from  a  grain  to 
masses  weighing  several  tons  each;  a  heap,  moreover,  so 
easily  sundered  that  its  **1  p™TJri  .t.Ul££ 


.. 

ally  along  the  orbit.  It  follows  that  every  Comet  must 
eventually  perish  unless  it  restores  its  nucleus  by  collect- 
ing stray  meteors.  That  disintegration  does  occur  has 
been  observed  time  and  time  again. 

For  example,  Biela's  Comet,  which  was  discovered  in 
1826,  burst  into  two  fragments,  which  drifted  apart  a 
distance  of  one  million  miles.  Thus  it  became  a  twin 
Comet.  Eventually  it  disappeared  as  a  Comet,  and  in 
its  stead  we  see  a  shoal  of  meteors  whenever  we  cross 
its  track  every  six  and  a  half  years. 

It  is  possible  that  the  Comets  of  1668,  1843,  1880, 
1882  and  1887,  all  travelling  in  approximately  the  same 
path,  are  fragments  of  a  single  large  body  which  was 
broken  up  by  the  gravitational  action  of  other  bodies  in 
the  system,  or  through  violent  encounter  with  the  Sun's 
surroundings. 

The  luminous  tail  which  streams  behind  the  nucleus, 
which  Shakespeare  described  so  beautifully  as  "crystal 
tresses,"  is  startling,  to  say  the  least.  Despite  a  length 
which  may  exceed  a  hundred  million  miles,  it  is  so  dia- 
phanously  light  and  subtile  that  it  is  diffcult  to  compare 
it  with  any  earthly  fabric.  The  air  that  we  breathe  is 
a  dense  blanket  in  comparison.  .Several  hundred  cubic 
miles  of  the  matter  composing  that  wonderful  luminous 


plume  would  not  outweigh  a  jarful  of  air.  By  reason 
ot  its  fairy  lightness,  it  is  possible  for  a  tail  occupying  a 
volume  thousands  of  times  greater  than  the  sun  to  sweep 
through  our  solar  system  without  causing  any  perturba- 
tions in  planetary  movements. 

No  celestial  phenomenon  has  caused  more  perplexity 
than  the  ghostly  sheaf  of  light  we  call  a  Cometh-tail. 
In  a  day,  in  a  few  hours  even,  the  £omi  -oi-tka.L,wonder- 
ful_  gossamer  may  change.  Hence  it  is  that  periodic 
Comets  are  identified  when  they  return,  not  by  the  length 
and  arch  of  their  tails,  but  by  their  orbits.  These  alone 
are  permanent. 

When  a  Comet  is  first  seen  in  the  telescope,  it  ap- 
pears as  a  diminutive  filmy  patch,  often  unadorned  by 
any  tail.  As  it  travels  on  toward  the  Sun,  at  a  speed 
compared  with  which  a  modern  rifle  bullet  would  seem 
.  to  crawl,  violent  eruptions  occur  in  the  nucleus. 

The  ejected  matter  is  bent  back  to  form  the  cloak 
called  the  "coma."  With  a  nearer  approach  to  the  sun, 
the  tail  begins  to  sprout,  increasing  in  size  and  bright- 
ness as  it  proceeds.  Evidently  there  is  some  connection 
between  the  Sun  and  the  tail,  something  akin  to  cause 
and  effect. 

When  the  Comet  rushes  on  toward  the  Sun,  invari- 
ably the  tail  drifts  behind  the  nucleus  like  the  smoke  from 
a  locomotive.  But  when  the  Comet  swings  around  the 
Sun  and  travels  away  from  it,  a  startling  change  takes 
place.  The  tail  no  longer  trails  behind,  but  projects 
in.  front,  as  if  some  mighty  solar  wind  were  blowing  it 
in  advance  of  the  head. 

This  phenomenon  has  long  been  an  astronomical 
riddle.  Here  was  a  kind  of  matter  that, refused  to  obey 
the  laws  of  gravitation  and  yield  to  the  enormous  pull 
of  the  Sun. 

(105) 


OCTOBER  5.  OCTOBER  9- 

DONATI'S  COMET  OF  1858. 


It  was  thought  for  a  time  that  the  tail  was  flung  away 
from  the  Sun  by  stupendous  repelling  electrical  forces. 
That  electricity  plays  its  part  in  the  formation  of  the 
fairy  plume  is  conceivable,  and  even  probable;  but  re- 
cently the  physicist  has  discovered  a  new  source  of  repel- 
lent energy  which  very  plausibly  explains  the  mystery  of 
a  Comet's  tail. " 

This  new  source  of  energy  is  nothing  less  than  the 
pressure  or  push  of  the  Sun's  light.  Solar  gravitation  is 
a  force  more  powerful  than  we  can  realize.  If  it  were 
possible  for  us  to  live  on  the  Sun,  we  would  find  our- 
selves pulled  down  so  violently  that  our  body  would 
weigh  two  tons.  Our  clothing  alone  would  weigh  more 
than  one  hundred  pounds.  Running  would  be  a  very 
difficult  athletic  feat.  Light  pressure  must  indeed  by 
powerful  if  it  can  conquer  so  relentless  a  force. 

Because  we  have  never  seen  objects  torn  from  our 
hands  by  the  pressure  of  light,  it  may  be  inferred  that 
this  newly  discovered  force  affects  only  bodies  that  are 
invisibly  small.  With  the  aid  of  instruments  that  feel 
what  our  hands  can  never  feel  and  see  what  our  eyes 
can  never  see,  the  modern  physicist  has  critically  ana- 
lyzed the  radiation  that  beats  upon  the  earth  from  the 
distant  Sun. 

Light  really  does  sway  infinitely  small  particles,  as 
was  first  experimentally  proved  by  the  Russian  Lebedev. 
Two  American  astronomers,  Nichols  and  Hull,  improved 
upon  his  method.  They  cast  the  solar  effulgence  into 
mighty  mathematical  scales  and  found  that  the  earth  sus- 
tains a  light-load  of  no  less  than  75,000  tons. 

Most  city-bred  people  are  familiar  with  the  so-called 
"Sun  Motors" — little  mills  with  black  and  white  wings, 
enclosed  in  airtight  vessels,  which  spin  around  in  "per- 
petual motion"  under  the  effect  of  "Sun  Pressure." 

(107) 


It  remained  for  the  broad  mind  of  a  Swedish  physicist, 
Svante  Arrhenius,  to  apply  the  principle  of  light-pressure 
cosmically.     He  explained,  very  simply,  that  because-, a^ 
Comet's  tail  is  composed,  of  a  very  fine  dust  it  can  easily 
be  driven  away  from  the  Sun  by  radiation  pressure. 

To  understand  how  it  is  possible  for  so  immaterial  a 
thing  as  a  sunbeam  to  produce  so  huge  art  effect,  we  have 
only  to  take  a  very  simple  example. 

Assume  that  you  have  before  you  a  block  of  wood 
weighing  one  pound.  The  block  exposes  a  certain 
amount  of  surface  to  the  Sun's  light.  Saw  the  block  in 
half,  and  you  increase  the  amount  of  that  surface.  Divide 
each  half  again  into  half,  and  the  exposed  surface  is  fur- 
ther augmented.r  If  this  process  of  subdivision  is  car- 
ried on  far  enough,  the  block  will  be  reduced  to  sawdust. 

The  entire  mass  of  sawdust  still  weighs  one  pound; 
but  its  surface  has  been  vastly  enlarged.  Indeed,  the 
particles  of  sawdust,  individually  considered,  may  be  said 
to  consist  of  much  surface  and  very  little  weight.  If  it 
were  possible  to  take  each  granule  of  visible  sawdust 
and  subdivide  it  into  invisible  particles,  a  -peiot-jaziuild  be 
reached  whej^^he_pressure  of  light  would  exactly  coun> 
terbalance  the  pull  of  gravitation,  so  that  the  particles. 
/\  jEVQuIH  remain  suspendeH^TrT  space,  perfectly  balanced  in 
the  scale  of  opposing  cosmic  forces. 

„     Finally,   if  the   subdivision  be   continued  beyond  this 
critical  point,  the  particles  will  be  wrenched  away  from 
the  grip  of  gravitation  and  hurled  out  into  space  by  the 
\  pressure  of  light. 

^£o  much  has  been  discovered  about  the  particles  that 
compose  a  Comet's  tail  that  the  more  progressive  scien- 
tists of  our  day  have  accepted  this  ingenious  theory. 
Thus  it  has  been  decided  by  them  that  the  delicate  tresses 

extent  composed  of  fine  par- 

(108) 


June  2C^ 


June  30. 


July  1. 


CHANGES  IN  THE  COMET  OF   1863. 


Before  we  can  completely  accept  the  view  that  light- 
pressure  forms  this  train  of  soot  we  must  ascertain  whe- 
ther the  pressure  of  light  is  capable  of  accounting  for  the 
flash-like  rapidity  with  which  a  Comet's  tail  changes. 

A  .Comet  may  throw  out  a  tail  sixty  million  miles  long 
in  t\yo  days..  Is  it  actually  possible  for  light-pressure  to 
accomplish  that  astonishing  feat?  Arrhenius  has  com- 
puted that  865,000  miles  an  hour  is  the  speed  of  a  light- 
flung  particle  of  one-half  the  critical  diameter.  Because 
they  are,  only  one-eighteenth  as  large  as  this  particle  of 
critical  diameter,  the  dust  grains  in  a  Comet's  tail  would 
be  propelled  over  the  same  865,000  miles  in  less  than 
four  minutes.  It  follows  that  the  solar  radiation  is 
amply  strong  enough  to  toss  out  a  tail  of  sixty  million 
miles  in  two  days. 

Photography  in  the  hands  of  Prof.  E.  E.  Barnard,  of 
the  Yerkes  Observatory,  has  revealed  some  extraordinary 
changes  in  Comets'  tails,  changes  which  are  not  apparent 
to  the  eye  and  which  cannot  be  explained  by  light  pres- 
sure or  by  solar  electrical  forces.     He  has  collected  a 
formidable  mass  of  photographic  evidence  which  seems 
p-*o  show  that  there  are  other  influences  at  work  besides 
\   the  Sun's  radiation,   and  that  these  influences  manifest 
1  themselves  in  distorting  and  breaking  a  Comet's  tail.     In 
'-some  Comets  of  recent  years,   streams  of  matter  have 
been  shot  out  in  large  angles  to  the  main  direction  of  the 
tail  without  being  at  all  bent  by  the  pressure  of  light. 
In  Morehouse's  Comet  of   1908,  tails  were   repeatedly 
formed  and  discarded  to  drift  bodily  out  into  space  and 
melt  away.  Sometimes  the  photographic  plate  has  shown 
the  tail  twisted  like  a  corkscrew  and  sometimes  it  has  re- 
vealed masses  of  matter  at  some  distance  from  the  head, 
where  apparently  no  supply  had  reached  it.     At  one  time 
the  entire  tail  of  Morehouse's  Comet  was  thrown  vio- 

(110) 


lently  forward,  a  peculiarity  so  utterly  opposed  to  the 
laws  of  gravitation  that  Professor  Barnard  suspects  some 
unknown  force  at  work  in  planetary  space  besides  a  force 
which  undoubtedly  resides  in  the  Comet  itself.  If  Hal- 
ley's  Comet  serves  no  other  purpose  than  to  throw  light 
upon  this  mystery,  its  return  will  more  than  repay  as- 
tronomers for  all  their  observatory  vigils. 

From  the  fact  that  the  matter  is  ejected  from  the  head 
to  form  the  tail,  it  would  follow  that,  unless  it  has  the 
means  of  rejuvenating  itself,  a  comet  must  eventually  be 
disintegrated.  Instances.  .a£-~this~  .fragmfaita.tio.n .._and^ 
eventual  disappearance  of  a  Comet  are  not  wanting  in 
astronomical  annals.  It  has  been  stated  previously  that 
when  Biela's  Comet  appeared  in  1846  it  became  dis- 
torted and  elongated,  that  it  eventually  split  up  into  two 
separate  bodies,  that  in  1852  it  again  appeared  in  its 
double  form,  and  that  it  has  since  disappeared. 

In  a  way,  Comets  may  be  said  to  bleed  to  death. 
At  each  return  of  Halley's  Comet,  future  astronomers 
will  find  it  less  brilliant  than  it  was  seventy-six  or  seventy- 
seven  years  before.  Some  time  there  will  be  no  Halley's  / 
Comet  left,  and  the  most  famous  Comet  of  its  kind  will 
be  reduced  to  a  shoal  of  meteors  varying  in  weight  from 
a  few  ounces  to  several  tons  and  faithfully  pursuing  the 
orbit  which  their  parent  traced  and  retraced  century  after 
century. 


(no 


COGGIA'S  COMET,  18Y4i  ON.  J.ULY  13» 


THE  PERIL  OF  THE  COMET 

IT  WAS  Edmund  Halley  who  first  revealed  a  source  of 
danger  from  Comets,  of  which  even  medieval  super- 
stition had  never  dreamed. 

While  he  was  patiently_plQt±ing__oiit_±lie_Drbit  of  the 
Comet  of  1680,  which  had  inspired  no  little  dismay 
among  his  contemporaries,  Halley  found  that  the  Earth's 
orbit  had  been  approached  by  the  Comet  within  four 
thousand  miles — half  the  diameter  -of  the  Earth. 

If  the  Earth  had  been  struck  by  that  fiery  wanderer? 

None  had  ever  thought  of  the  possibility. 

Halley  began  to  do  some  mathematical  figuring,  and 
decided  that,  if  a  Comet's  mass  were  comparable  with 
that  of  the  Earth,  our  year  would  have  been  changed  in 
length  because  the  Earth's  orbit  would  have  been  altered. 
He  also  speculated  what  would  happen  to  the  Earth,  and 
reached  this  conclusion : 

"If  so  large  a  body  with  so  rapid  a  motion  were  to 
strike  the  Earth — a  thing  by  no  means  impossible — the 
shock  might  reduce  this  beautiful  world  to  its  original 
chaos." 

Halley  even  thought  it  probable  that  the  Earth  had 
actually  been  stryck  by  a  Comet  at  some  remote  period, 
struck  obliquely,  moreover,  so  that  the  axis  of  rotation 
had  been  changed.  Thus  he  was  led  to  infer  that  pos- 
sibly the  North  Pole  had  once  been  at  a  point  near  Hud- 
son's Bay,  and  that  the  rigour  of  North  America's  cli- 
mate might  thus  be  accounted  for. 

The  seed  which  was  thus  sown  by  Halley  has  borne 
fruit.  In  Halley's  own  time,  learned  men  were  brood- 

("3) 


ing  over  the  ultimate  destruction  of  the  Earth  by  col- 
lision with  a  Comet. 

Dr.  Whiston,  who  succeeded  Newton  at  Cambridge 
in  the  Lucasian  chair  of  mathematics,  was  sure  that  a 
Comet  caused  the  Deluge,  and  went  so  far  as  to  prophesy 
that  a  Comet,  as  it  passed  us  on  its  outward  course  from 
the  Sun,  would  ultimately  bring  about  a  "General  Con- 
flagration," and  thus  envelope  the  Earth  in  flames. 

One  century  after  Halley,  the  French  astronomer  Lap- 
lace, whose  mathematical  attainments  were  surpassed 
only  by  those  of  Newton,  applied  his  brilliant  mind  to 
the  possibility  of  a  collision  with  a  Comet,  and  arrived 
at  this  conclusion: 

"The  seas  would  abandon  their  ancient  beds  and  rush 
towards  the  new  equator,  drowning  in  one  universal 
deluge  the  greater  part  of  the  human  race.  .  .  .  We 
see,  then,  in  effect,  why  the  ocean  has  receded  from  the 
high  lands  upon  which  we  find  incontestable  marks  of 
its  sojourn;  we  see  how  the  animals  and  plants  of  the 
south  have  been  able  to  exist  in  the  climate  of  the  north, 
where  their  remains  and  imprints  have  been  discovered." 

The  famous  French  mathematician  Lalande  showed 
that  if  a  Comet  as  heavy  as  the  Earth  were  to  come 
within  six  times  the  distance  of  the  Moon,  it  would  exert 
such  a  powerful  attraction  upon  the  waters  of  the  globe 
as  to  pull  up  a  tidal  wave  13,000  feet  above  the  ordinary 
sea-level  and  inundate  the  continents.  .Every  European 
mountain  would  be  submerged  except  Mt.  Blanc,  and 
only  the  inhabitants  of  the  Rockies,  the  Andes  and  the 
Himalayas  would  escape  death. 

Since  Lalande's  day  there  has  been  more  than  one 
Comet  "scare."  One  of  these  startled  Europe  in  1832. 
On  October  2Qth  of  that  year,  Biela's  Comet  crossed 
the  Earth's  orbit.  The  announcement  was  received  with 


stupefaction.  It  was  only  when  Arago  soothingly 
pointed  out  that  the  Earth  would  not  reach  the  exact 
point  where  the  Comet  had  intersected  the  Earth's  orbit 
until  November  30,  at  which  time  the  Comet  would  be 
50,000,000  miles  away,  that  the  popular  excitement  sub- 
sided. A  similar  alarm  seized  the  world  in  1857.  Some 
prophet  declared  that  on  June  13  the  world  would  col- 
lide with  a  certain  periodic  Comet  having  a  period  of 
revolution  of  three  centuries.  It  is  related  that  the 
churches  and  confessionals  were  crowded  for  days.  Still 
another  prediction,  made  in  1872  by  Plantamour,  the 
distinguished  director  of  the  Geneva  Observatory,  set 
Europe  in  a  ferment.  His  calculations  were  based  on 
errors,  which  were  pointed  out  by  other  astronomers, 
and  the  public  mind  was  quieted. 

Although  more  than  two  centuries  have  passed  since 
Halley  was  in  his  prime,  the  possibility  of  a  collision 
with  some  vagabond  star  still  haunts  the  mind  of  the 
astronomer. 

That  a  collision  is   apt  to   occur  is  an  admitted   as- 
tronomic  fact.     The  latest  estimate,   made  in   1909  by 
Prof.    William    H.    Pickering    of    Harvard    University, 
would  seem  to  prove  that   the   core   of  one   Comet  in 
about   100,000,000  Comets  will  hit  the  earth  squarely 
An  encounter  with  some  part  of  a  Comet's  head  wil 
happen  once  in  4,000,000  years.     Since  Comets'  orbit 
are  more  thickly  distributed  near  the  ecliptic  than  else 
where  in  the  celestial  sphere,  the  collisions  will  occur 
according  to   Pickering,   perhaps  more   frequently  tha. 
this. 

Because  Pickering's  figures  differ  from  those  other 
astronomers — Arago  and  Babinet,  for  instance — it  must 
not  be  inferred  that  his  predecessors  are  wrong  and  that 
he  is  right  in  his  calculations.  The  problem  is  too  complex 

(H5) 


for  that.  Pickering,  Arago  and  Babinet  differ  partly  be- 
cause they  have  assumed  different  average  sizes  for  their 
Comets,  and  partly  because  their  definitions  of  visible 
Comets  are  not  in  accord. 

That  the  possibility  is  very  real,  we  shall  all  have  an 
opportunity  of  judging  on  May  18,  1910.  On  that  date 
the  Earth  will  be  plunged  in  the  tail  of  Halley's  Comet, 
and  the  head  will  be  less  than  15,000,000  miles  away — a 
mere  hand's  breadth  in  the  vastness  of  the  universe. 

What  will  happen? 

Nobody  knows  for  certain. 

By  means  of  the  wonderful  instrument  called  the  spec- 
troscope, an  instrument  which  analyzes  a  distant  star  as 
readily  as  if  it  were  a  stone  picked  up  in  the  road,  it 
has  been  discovered  that  a  Comet's  tail  is  composed  of 
gases  called  "hydrocarbons"  (combinations  of  hydrogen 
and  carbon),  and  that  it  bears  a  close  chemical  resem- 
blance to  the  blue  {Tame  of  a  kitchen  gas-stove. 

Illuminating  gas,  as  we  all  know,  is  poisonous.  If  a 
Comet's  tail  were  dense  enough,  it  is  conceivable,  there- 
fore, that  every  human  being  on  this  planet  might  be 
asphyxiated  by  breathing  the  Comet's  poisonous  vapour 
as  the  Earth  plowed  through  it.  There  is  also  this  pos- 
sibility, suggested  by  Flammarion,  that  the  gases  of  a 
very  dense  tail  might  so  combine  with  the  nitrogen  which 
constitutes  nearly  80  per  cent,  of  the  air  we  breathe,  that 
the  atmosphere  would  be  converted  into  the  "laughing 
gas"  employed  by  dentists.  The  world  would  die  in  a 
delirium  of  joy.  At  first  a  delightful  serenity  would 
settle  upon  mankind.  Then  would  follow  a  contagious 
gaiety,  febrile  exaltation,  a  paroxysm  of  delight,  and 
then  madness.  Flammarion  even  conceives  the  world 
merrily"  dancing  a  joyous,  hysterical  sarabande  in  which 
it  perishes  laughing. 

(116)  > 


The  tail  of  a  Comet  is  fraught  with  still  other  pos- 
sible dangers.  Our  atmosphere  contains  a  certain 
amount  of  hydrogen,  a  marvellously  light  gas  to  which 
balloons  owe  their  buoyancy.  Besides  its  lightness,  this 
gas  is  characterized  by  an  extreme  inflammability.  The 
law  of  the  diffusion  of  gases  teaches  us  that  part  of  this 
hydrogen  in  the  air  is  mechanically  mixed  with  other 
gases,  and  that  part  of  it  probably  floats  in  the  upper 
air,  far  beyond  the  reach  of  any  balloon.  A  Comet  may 
be  regarded  as  a  huge  lighted  torch  whirling  through 
space,  which  may  be  brought  dangerously  near  that  upper 
layer  of  highly  inflammable  hydrogen.  If  the  gas  shall 
ever  be  touched  off  by  this  flying  torch,  our  planet  will 
be  ignited.  The  whole  atmosphere  will  become  a  seeth- 
ing ocean  of  flame,  in  which  forests  and  cities  will  burn 
like  straw,  in  wrfich  oceans  will  boil  away  in  vast  clouds 
of  steam,  and  in  which  all  animal  life  will  be  snuffed  out 
of  existence  before  it  shall  realize  that  the  world  is  on 
fire.  In  a  word,  the  globe  will  become  a  planetary 
funeral  pyre.  Since  water  results  from  burning  hydro- 
gen in  oxygen,  this  same  fierce  and  terrible  flame  must 
be  speedily  extinguished  by  a  mighty  deluge  which  will 
engulf  the  Earth. 

A  spectroscope  analysis  of  Halley's  Comet  has  fur- 
thermore revealed  the  presence  of  ryan^g^n  g??  ln  tb6 
tail.  Cyanogen  is  a  compound  of  -nitrogen  and  carbon, 
one  of  the  most  poisonous  compounds  with  which  the 
chemist  is  familiar.  Prussic  acid,  potassium  cyanide  and 
many  other  cyanides,  all  of  them  almost  instantaneously 
fatal  if  taken  into  the  human  system,  are  compounds  of 
cyanogen.  If  that  gas  is  present  in  large  enough  quan- 
tities, one  flick  of  a  Comet's  tail  will  end  all  human  and 
animal  existence. 

So  much  is  certain.  A  collision  of  the  Earth  with  a 
Comet  will  undoubtedly  prove  disastrous — how  disas- 


trous  will  depend  largely  on  the  size  of  the  Comet's  head 
and  on  its  speed.  That  a  violent  heat  will  be  de- 
veloped, we  have  every  reason  to  believe,  from  our 
knowledge  of  meteors.  The  mere  movement  of  a  me- 
teor through  the  thin  upper  layers  of  our  atmosphere  pro- 
duces a  dazzling  trail  and  reduces  the  meteor  itself  to  a 
molten  metallic  mass.  Arrest  a  body  in  swift  motion, 
and  you  must  dissipate  its  energy  in  some  way.  As  a 
rule,  the  energy  is  converted  into  heat.  A  bullet  dis- 
charged from  a  rifle  is  often  melted  when  suddenly 
stopped  by  steel  armour.  A  Comet  travels  at  a  pace 
compared  with  which  a  projectile,  fired  from  the  most 
powerful  twelve-inch  gun,  seems  only  to  crawl.  What, 
then,  must  be  the  frightful  effect  when  it  strikes  the 
Earth? 

A  Comet  rushes  through  space  not  at' the  bullet's  rate 
of  thousands  of  feet  an  hour,  but  of  a  million  miles  an 
hour.  The  bigger  it  is,  and  the  faster  it  moves,  the 
greater  will  be  the  heat  developed  by  its  stoppage. 

"At  the  first  contact  with  the  upper  regions  of  the  at- 
mosphere," writes  Prof.  Simon  Newcomb,  "the  whole 
heavens  would  be  illuminated  with  a  resplendence  beyond 
that  of  a  thousand  Suns,  the  sky  radiating  a  light  which 
would  blind  every  eye  that  beheld  it,  and  a  heat  which 
would  melt  the  hardest  rocks."  The  same  conclusion 
was  reached  by  Prof.  Faye. 

When  the  time  comes  for  a  collision  with  a  Comet 
of  formidable  size,  the  human  race  will  be  in  the  hor- 
rible predicament  of  knowing  the  exact  hour  and  minute 
of  its  doom.  The  newspapers  will  print  a  dispatch 
from  some  great  observatory,  reading  perhaps  like  this : 

"A  telescopic  Comet  was  discovered  by  Caxton  in 
right  ascension  7  hours  13  minutes  i  second,  and  de- 
clension 17  degrees  28  minutes  31  seconds.  Moderate 
motion  in  a  northwest  direction." 

(118) 


"If  so  large  a  body  with  so  rapid  a  motion  were  to  strike  the  Earth — a  thing 
by  no  means  impossible— the  shock  would  reduce  this  beautiful  world  to  its 
original  chaos." — -EDMUND  HALLEY. 


At  first  -the  discovery  produces  not  even  a  ripple  of 
excitement.  Telescopic  Comets  are  discovered  too  fre- 
quently. Three  days  later  the  discoverer  has  worked 
out  an  ephemeris,  which  gives  the  date  when  the  body 
will  pass  around  the  Sun,  and  which  indicates  the  Comet's 
path.  He  finds  that  on  a  certain  date  and  at  a  certain 
hour  the  Earth  and  the  Comet  must  crash  together. 
Again  and  again  he  repeats  his  calculations,  hoping  that 
he  may  have^rred.  The  utmost  permissible  allowance 
for  accelerations  and  retardations  caused  by  the  outer 
planets  of  the  solar  system  fails  to  change  the  result. 

The  Earth  and  the  Comet  must  meet.  With  some 
hesitation  the  astronomer  sends  a  telegram  to  a  central 
observatory,  which  acts  as  a  distributor  of  astronomical 
news.  At  first  his  prediction  is  discredited  and  even 
laughed  at.  Another  computation  is  made  at  the  obser- 
vatory. Again  mathematics  infallibly  indicates  the  exact 
time  and  place  of  the  encounter,  and  the  last  lingering 
hope  is  dispelled.  Telegrams  are  sent  to  astronomical 
societies,  to  the  leading  scientific  periodicals  and  to  the 
newspapers. 

At  first  the  prediction  of  the  Earth's  doom  is  received 
with  popular  incredulity,  engendered  by  years  of  news- 
paper misrepresentation.  The  world's  end  has  been 
too  frequently  and  too  frightfully  foretold  on  flamboyant 
double-page  Sunday  editions.  When  the  truth  is  at  last 
accepted,  after  days  of  insistent  repetition  of  the  original 
announcement,  a  wave  of  terror  runs  through  the  world. 

There  is  no  escape.  International  committees  of  as- 
tronomers meet  daily  to  mark  the  approach  of  the  Comet. 
Bulletins  are  published  announcing  the  steadily  dwind- 
ling distance  between  the  world  and  the  huge  projectile 
in  the  sky.  The  great  tail,  arching  the  Heavens  as  the 
Comet  approaches,  seems  like  a  mighty,  fiery  sword  held 
in  an  unseen  Titanic  hand  and  relentlessly  sweeping 

(120) 


A  , 


down.  The  temples,  churches  and  synagogues  are 
thronged  with  supplicating  multitudes  on  bended  knees, 
in  a  catalepsy  of  terror.  The  stock  exchanges,  banks, 
shops  and  public  institutions  are  deserted.  Business  is  at 
a  standstill.  The  roar  of  the  street  is  hushed.  No 
wagons  rattle  over  the  pavement;  no  hucksters  call  out 
their  wares. 

As  the  Comet  draws  nearer  and  nearer,  night  changes 
into  an  awful,  nocturnal  day.  Even  at  noon  the  Comet 
outshines  the  Sun.  There  is  no  twilight.  The  Sun  sets; 
but  the  Comet  glows  in  the  sky,  another  more  brilliant 
luminary,  marvellously  yet  fearfully  arrayed  in  a  fiery 
plume  that  overspreads  the  sky.  The  Moon  is  com- 
pletely lost,  and  the  Stars  are  drowned  out  in  this  daz- 
zling glare.  Warned  by  the  astronomers,  mankind  takes 
refuge  in  subterranean  retreats  to  await  its  fate. 

Long  before  the  actual  collision — long  before  the 
Earth  is  reduced  to  a  maelstrom  of  lava,  gas,  steam  and 
planetary  debris — mankind  is  annihilated  with  merciful 
swiftness  by  heat  and  suffocation.  A  candle  flame  blown 
out  by  a  gust  of  wind  is  not  more  quickly  extinguished. 

When  the  Comet  encounters  the  upper  layers  of  the 
atmosphere,  there  is  a  blinding  flash,  due  to  friction  be- 
tween the  air  and  the  Comet.  A  few  seconds  later  the 
crash  comes.  From  within,  molten  rock  and  flame,  pent 
up  for  geologic  ages,  burst  forth,  geyser-like.  The  Earth 
is  converted  into  a  gigantic  volcano,  in  the  eruption  of 
which  oceans  are  spilled  and  continents  are  torn  asunder, 
to  vanish  like  wax  in  a  furnace. 

When  it  is  all  over,  the  Earth  swims  through  space,  a 
blackened  planetary  cinder, — desolate  and  dead. 


(121) 


THE  END  OF  THE  WORLD 

/^AMILLE  FLAMMARION,  the  French  astrono- 
^^  mer,  in  his  story,  uThe  End  of  the  World,"  gives 
this  graphic  description  of  the  results  of  a  collision  be- 
tween a  Comet  and  our  Earth: 

In  Paris,  London,  Rome,  Berlin,  St.  Petersburg,  Con- 
stantinople, New  York  and  Chicago — in  all  the  great 
capitals  of  the  world,  in  all  the  cities,  in  all  the  villages — 
the  frightened  people  wandered  out  of  doors,  as  one  sees 
ants  run  about  when  their  ant-hills  are  disturbed.  All 
the  affairs  of  every-day  life  were  forgotten. 

All  human  projects  were  at  a  standstill.  People 
seemed  to  have  lost  interest  in  all  their  affairs.  They 
were  in  a  state  of  demoralization — a  dejection  more  ab- 
ject even  than  that  which  is  produced  by  sea-sickness. 

All  places  of  worship  had  been  crowded  on  that  mem- 
orable day  when  it  was  seen  that  a  collision  with  a  Comet 
had  become  inevitable. 

In  Paris  the  crowds  in  the  churches  were  so  great  that 
people  could  no  longer  get  near  Notre  Dame,  the  Made- 
leine and  the  other  churches.  Within  the  churches,  vast 
congregations  of  worshippers  were  on  their  knees  pray- 
ing to  God  on  High.  The  churches  rang  with  the  sounds 
of  supplication,  but  no  other  sound  was  heard.  The 
great  church  organs  and  the  bells  in  the  steeples  were 
hushed. 

In  the  streets,  on  the  avenues,  in  the  public  squares, 
there  was  the  same  dread  silence.  Nothing  was  bought 
or  sold.  No  newspapers  were  hawked  about. 

The  only  vehicles  seen  on  the  streets  were  funeral 
hearses  carrying  to  the  cemeteries  the  bodies  of  the  first 
victims  of  the  Comet.  Of  these  there  were  already 

(122) 


many.  They  were  people  who  had  died  from  fright  and 
from  heart  disease. 

With  what  anxiety  everyone  waited  for  the  night! 

Never,  perhaps,  was  there  a  more  beautiful  sunset. 
Never  a  clearer  sky.  The  sun  seemed  to  dip  into  a  sea 
of  red  and  gold. 

The  huge  red  ball  of  the  sun  sank  majestically  to  the 
horizon.  But  the  stars  did  not  appear.  Night  did  not 
come. 

To  the  solar  day  succeeded  a  new  day,  the  daylight  of 
the  Comet.  Its  intense  light  resembled  that  of  an  Au- 
rora Borealis,  but  more  vivid,  coming  from  a  great  in- 
candescent spot,  which  had  not  been  visible  during  the 
day  because  it  was  below  the  horizon,  but  which  would 
certainly  have  rivalled  the  splendour  of  the  Sun. 

This  luminous  spot  rose  in  the  East  almost  at  the  same 
time  as  the  full  Moon.  The  two  luminous  bodies  rose 
together,  side  by  side.  As  they  rose,  the  light  of  the 
Moon  seemed  to  pale,  but  the  head  of  the  Comet  in- 
creased in  splendour  with  the  disappearance  of  the  Sun 
below  the  western  horizon. 

Now,  after  nightfall,  the  Comet  dominated  the  world 
— a  scarlet-red  ball  with  jets  of  yellow  and  green  flame 
which  seemed  to  flutter  like  fiery  wings. 

To  the  terrified  people  it  seemed  like  a  giant  of  fire 
taking  possession  of  all  Heaven  and  Earth. 

Already  the  outermost  jets  of  flame  had  reached  the 
Moon.  From  one  instant  to  the  next  the  flaming  rays 
would  descend  upon  the  Earth. 

All  eyes  were  distended  with  horror  when  it  was  seen 
that  the  horizon  was  lighting  up  with  tiny  violet  flames 
as  from  a  vast  fire. 

An  instant  afterward,  the  Comet  diminished  in  bril- 
liancy. This  was  apparently  because  the  Comet,  upon 
touching  the  atmosphere  of  our  Earth,  had  come  within 


the  penumbra  of  our  planet  and  had  lost  part  of  its  re- 
flected light  coming  from  the  Sun.  But  in  reality  this  ap- 
parent extinction  was  the  effect  of  contrast.  When  the 
less  dazzled  eyes  of  the  awestruck,  human  spectators  had 
grown  used  to  this  new  light,  it  appeared  almost  as  in- 
tense as  at  first,  but  paler,  more  sinister  and  sepulchral. 

Never  before  had  the  Earth  been  lit  up  with  so  sickly 
a  light. 

The  drouth  of  the  air  became  intolerable.  Heat,  as 
from  a  huge  burning  oven,  came  from  above.  A  hor- 
rible stench  of  burning  sulphur — due,  no  doubt,  to  elec- 
trified ozone — poisoned  the  atmosphere. 

All  the  people  then  saw  that  their  time  had  come. 
Many-thousand-throated  cries  rent  the  air.  "The  World 
is  burning.  We  are  on  fire !"  they  cried. 

All  the  horizon,  in  fact,  was  now  lit  up  with  flame, 
forming  a  crown  of  blue  light.  It  was,  indeed,  as  had 
been  foreseen  by  scientists,  the  oxide  of  carbon  igniting 
in  the  air  and  producing  anhydrid  of  carbon.  Clearly, 
too,  hydrogen  from  the  Comet  combined  with  it. 

On  a  sudden,  as  the  people  were  gazing  terrified,  mo- 
tionless, mute,  holding  their  breath,  and  scared  out  of 
their  wits,  the  vault  of  Heaven  seemed  to  be  rent  asunder 
from  the  zenith  to  the  horizon.  Through  the  gaping 
breach  there  seemed  to  appear  the  huge  red  mouth  of 
a  dragon,  belching  forth  sheaves  of  sputtering  green 
flames. 

The  glare  of  the  atmosphere  was  so  fierce  that  those 
who  had  not  already  hidden  themselves  in  the  cellars 
of  their  houses,  now  all  rushed  helter-skelter  to  the  near- 
est underground  openings,  be  they  subway  steps,  cellar 
doors  or  sewer  manholes.  Thousands  were  crushed  or 
maimed  during  this  mad  stampede,  while  many  others, 
frantic  from  fright  and  stricken  with  the  heat,  fell  dead 
from  apoplexy. 


All  reasoning  powers  seemed  to  have  ceased.  Among 
those  cowering  in  dark  cellars  and  subterranean  passages 
below,  there  was  nothing  but  silence,  begot  by  dull  resig- 
nation and  stupor. 

Of  all  this  panic-stricken  multitude,  only  the  astrono- 
mers had  remained  at  their  posts  in  the  Observatories, 
making  unceasing  observations  of  this  great  astronomic 
phenomenon.  They  were  the  only  eye-witnesses  of  the 
impending  collision. 

Their  calculations  had  been  that  the  terrestrial  globe 
would  penetrate  into  the  core  of  the  Comet,  as  a  cannon 
ball  might  into  a  cloud.  From  the  first  contact  of  the 
extreme  atmospheric  zones  of  the  Earth  and  of  the 
Comet,  they  had  figured,  the  transit  would  last  four  hours 
and  a  half. 

It  was  easy  to  compute,  since  the  Comet,  being  about 
fifty  times  as  large  -as  the  Earth,  was  to  be  pierced,  not 
in  its  centre,  but  at  one-quarter  of  the  distance  from  the 
centre,  with  a  velocity  of  173,000  kilometers  an  hour. 

It  was  about  forty  minutes  after  the  first  atmospheric 
impact  with  the  Comet,  that  the  heat  and  horrible  stench 
of  burning  sulphur  became  so  suffocating  that  a  few  more 
moments  of  this  torment  would  put  an  end  to  all  life. 
Even  the  most  intrepid  of  astronomers  withdrew  into 
the  interior  of  their  glass-domed  observatories,  which 
they  could  close  hermetically  as  they  descended  into  the 
deep  subterranean  vaults. 

The  longest  to  stay  above  was  a  young  assistant  as- 
tronomer, a  girl  student  from  California,  whose  nerves 
had  been  steeled  during  the  ordeal  of  the  San  Francisco 
earthquake.  She  remained  long  enough  to  witness  the 
apparition  of  a  huge,  white-hot  meteorite,  precipitating 
itself  southward  with  the  velocity  of  lightning. 

But  it  was  beyond  human  endurance  to  remain  longer 
above.  It  was  no  longer  possible  to  breathe.  To  the 


intense  heat  and  atmospheric  drouth,  destroying  all  vital 
functions,  was  added  the  poisoning  of  our  air  by  the 
oxide  of  carbon. 

The  ears  rang  as  from  the  tolling  of  funeral  bells,  and 
all  hearts  were  in  a  flutter  of  feverish  palpitation.  And 
always,  everywhere,  there  was  that  suffocating  stench  of 
sulphur. 

Now  a  shower  of  fire  fell  from  the  glowing  sky.  It 
was  raining  shooting-stars  and  white-hot  meteorites,  most 
of  which  burst  like  bombs.  The  fragments  of  these,  like 
flying  shrapnel,  crashed  through  the  roofs  and  set  fire 
to  the  buildings. 

To  the  conflagration  of  the  sky  were  added  the  flames 
of  fire  everywhere  on  earth. 

Claps  of  ear-splitting  thunder  followed  each  other  in- 
cessantly, produced  partly  by  the  explosions  of  the  me- 
teors, and  partly  by  a  tremendous  electric  thunderstorm. 
Rifts  of  lightning  zig-zagged  hither  and  thither. 

A  continuous  rumbling,  like  that  of  distant  drums, 
filled  the  ears  of  the  cowering  people  below,  awaiting 
their  fate.  This  low  rumble  was  interspersed  with  the 
deafening  detonations  of  exploding  meteors  and  the  high 
shriek  of  hurtling  aerial  fragments. 

Then  followed  unearthly  noises,  like  the  seething  of 
some  immense  boiling  cauldron,  the  wild  wailing  of 
winds,  and  the  quaking  of  the  soil  where  the  earth's  crust 
was  giving  way. 

This  unearthly  tempest  became  30  frightful,  so  fraught 
with  agony  and  mad  terror,  that  the  multitudes  grovel- 
ling below  were  overcome  with  paralysis,  and  lay  prone. 
Laid  low  like  dumb  brutes,  they  met  their  doom. 

The  end  of  all  had  come. 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

: 


COLOPHON 

POST  HOC,  NON  PROPTER  HOC: 

Sic  veteres  de  mult'is  rebus  opinabantur, 
Eodemque  dicto  eas  jugiter  absolvisse 

Recte  sibi  visi  sunt, 

Ft  puta  quaecumque  et  qualiacumque 

Cometanim   saeculares  redltus  sequuntur. 

CVR  TV  ITAOFE,  for  sit  an  quaeras, 

Haec  audltu  mlnime  jucunda  nobis  narrasti, 

Terrae  molus,  fluminum  inundationes,  annonae  defeitus, 

Pestes  mortiferas,  incendia,  bella, 

regumque  magnorum  excidia? 

Si  tibi  cordi  est, 

LECTOR  BENEFOLENTISSIME, 
rationem  nostram  didicisse, 

e\ay  veram  accipe : 
MFNDFS  VVLT  DEC  I  PL 


FINIS. 


(127) 


7 


LD  21- 


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